Catch Me
by phonevibrates
Summary: Grimmjow is a CIA tracking agent. He and his team have been ordered to find one Ichigo Kurosaki and arrest him for questioning. But who is Ichigo Kurosaki? Genius MIT student? Yakuza conman and hacker? One thing's for sure, catching Ichigo is just the beginning. Keeping him in one place long enough to get anything out of him will be another. Eventual GrimmxIchi. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Yo, new story. Tell me what you think.**

Grimmjow Jaegerjacques strode down the halls of Ogichi Prison with purpose. And a slight eye twitch. He had been up for 18 hours straight since this operation had started and he was pretty sure it wouldn't be ending anytime soon.

Earlier this evening, he and his illustrious team had arrested a young man by the name of Ichigo Kurosaki. It had gone something like this:

**(I am a premature page break. I weigh 6.3 pounds and have my father's eyes.)**

Grimmjow glanced around the spacious cathedral, not really paying attention to the beautiful ceremony taking place on the floor below his seat in the rafters. The agent shifted in his dark suit with a blue rose in the lapel. At first this place had seemed too open but now that he looked, there were really lots of places to hide in a place like this. He scanned the perimeter again. Dark shadows, heavy tapestries, rows and rows of pews. Again, Grimmjow scanned the heads of the guests. Of course, there was no bright orange hair. Not like he or his team had expected to find the man so easily, it had been less than a faint hope.

Obviously, if Ichigo Kurosaki showed up to his sister's wedding he would no doubt be disguised. Disguised extremely well.

Not that that would be a problem for the man, according to their files and evident in the fact that Grimmjow's team had been searching for the conman for more than 6 months and had no more leads than a newborn child had teeth. It had become increasingly frustrating as the months had worn on since they had gotten the assignment from CIA headquarters through their divisional boss, Barragan. Not even Ulquiorra, clocking in at about 100 more hours than the rest of the team, the whole time in front of glowing computer screen, had found any more evidence incriminating the young man than a few measly cons from a few years ago.

But word on the street was that this man was more than just a conman. At the very least, it was known that Ichigo Kurosaki was an expert hacker. Graduated from MIT a year earlier than the standard 4, with an innocent degree in Engineering and Architecture, the son of Getsuga Zangetsu, the late 'godfather' of the Japanese Yakuza sect in America. Old man Zangetsu had died 5 months before his daughter's wedding to Yakuza heir Jinta Urahara. Kurosaki's connections with the yakuza were obvious, but still sketchy and vague. Information about any yakuza in America was extremely difficult to access, probably due to Kurosaki himself. Ulquiorra had pointed out that in this manner, Ichigo had similarly wiped out nearly all information about himself, from social security number to high school ID card. And absolutely no information about the man's childhood could be found anywhere.

Grimmjow's team didn't even really have a proper picture of the man. There were blurry security camera shots of a orange-haired man, capped, sunglasses on, coat collar popped up to hide his face. When interviewing old MIT students, little else was discovered about his physical appearance except that he had brown eyes and was extremely handsome.

Besides these unhelpful descriptions and the small con jobs, Grimmjow's team had practically nothing to go on. Grimmjow wasn't even sure why the CIA was interested in Ichigo Kurosaki. The order had been to find him and bring him in, nothing else. It had pissed Grimmjow off. How were they supposed to catch a guy they had no info on? The man was practically a ghost for christ's sake!

And that was where they had been stuck up until a week ago when Grimmjow had gone home after another fruitless day to a large manilla envelope pinned to his door with a small, but beautiful switch knife. The knife had come up clean of fingerprints and discovered to cost borderline $700. Enclosed in the envelope were five intricately embossed wedding invitations, inviting every member of Grimmjow's team to attend the joining of Jinta Urahara and Yuzu Kurosaki in holy matrimony. A separate piece of paper, printed in blunt computer script had read, '_Ichigo Kurosaki will be there. Wear blue roses. Wait for the sign._' There was no name, of course, and the paper was also clean of fingerprints.

And so Agent Grimmjow and his team were attending a American Yakuza wedding. It wasn't as if they had any choice. This had been their only lead in months.

There had been heated discussion as to whether this was a sham of course. Many arguments had burst out in their base of operations throughout the week. Grimmjow had found himself shouting into Barragan's face not 3 inches away more than once. He wanted to get this operation going. He was going crazy just sitting around like a caged pup. They had called him in for this, and he wanted action. NOW. Grimmjow wasn't made for sitting down at a desk and filling out paperwork. It made his skin crawl. Grimmjow Jaegerjacques didn't do that kind of shit. Ever.

Even now, waiting for this 'sign', Grimmjow was antsy. His fingers itched for a cigarette, or to reach for his gun concealed in his tux. He rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the tension that was built up there. From what, he didn't know. He wasn't sure how he felt about this case. He had hunted down a lot of men in his life. But this was…different. Off. Something wasn't right. Even if they caught this guy, Grimmjow had a feeling he wouldn't get away from this case so easily… something was going on.

Ichigo Kurosaki had officially gone off the radar 7 months ago, 2 months before his father's death. The older man had been in poor health for the past year and the doctors had told the family there wasn't much time. When the order to find and arrest Ichigo Kurosaki had come in and a month later old man Zangetsu had died Grimmjow's team had pinned their hopes on the off chance that Ichigo would attend the funeral. They had been wrong, as far as they could tell, Ichigo had not shown up at the service nor at the cemetery. Or so it seemed.

Grimmjow recognized several familiar faces as he surveyed the wedding guests from the shadows of the choir rafters of the church that he had seen at Getsuga Zangetsu's funeral. There was Byakuya Kuchiki, a Yakuka noble of sorts and his sister, Rukia Kuchiki, standing as a bridesmaid at the front of the church. Jushiro Ukitake and Kyoraku Shunshi were on either side of Shigekuni Yamamoto, a Yakuza boss who had been on par with Zangetsu himself. The deadly, scared Zaraki Kenpachi was leering with what seemed to be a small child on his shoulder. His daughter, Grimmjow remembered. The man never when anywhere without the child, which was odd for a gang leader to keep his family so close all the time. But the man was crazy in any event. But not at crazy as Mayuri Kurotsuchi, the demented Yakuza scientist, who was know for experimenting on even his own daughter. The daughter in question was also standing as a bridesmaid along with Isane Unohana, the daughter of Retsu Unohana, an ally of the Yakuza and daughter of Yamamoto. Kisuke Urahara stood sat in the front pew of his son's wedding, looking plenty ridiculous as he sobbed into his sister-in-law's shoulder. Sui-Fong of the Chinese branch of the Yakuza looked pretty irritated at how Kisuke was acting. Give of course that the man acted like an idiot most of the time, her irritation was understandable. But everyone knew that underneath the playfully childish demeanor Kisuke Urahara was known to be a notoriously ruthless and highly intelligent yakuza commander. Kisuke's wife was no where to be seen.

As Grimmjow scanned the bridesmaids and groomsmen Grimmjow noticed that they were all wearing red roses, whether pinned to their dresses, or in their lapels like Grimmjow was. He knew from attending Zangetsu's funeral the one of the petals in every flower was dyed black out of respect for the deceased Yakuza leader. Most of the wedding guests were wearing them as well.

_'So even the dead attend weddings,'_ thought Grimmjow offhandedly.

Suddenly something caught his eye. The maid of honor, Yuzu's twin sister- Karen Kurosaki, was not wearing a red rose pinned to her soft golden dress, but a _blue_ one.

Grimmjow pulled at his lapel to speak into the microphone concealed under it. "Starrk, do you see her?"

There was a pause and Grimmjow watched form his perch as a brown-haired head shifted in the 5th pew.

"You mean little girl blue?" Starrk's smooth, calm voice came through Grimmjow's ear piece. The man was a goddamn monk when it came to waiting games like this, something Grimmjow envied as he tapped his foot impatiently.

"You mean not so little?" Grimmjow glanced at the exit where personal-pain-in-his-ass Nnoitra was hiding in the shadows. Nnoitra was an excellent agent, with a shooting arm steadier than a fucking surgeon. But sometimes that man was just an asshat.

"You're disgusting." The blue-haired agent's eyes flicked to the very edge of the pews where a mop of black hair turned methodically, surveying the area as he spoke into his lapel. Ulquiorra could double as a desk-drone and field agent, which made him an invaluable member of the team as a portable hacker.

Grimmjow's sensitive ears picked up the haughty tone of the next speaker. "I concur. You're a foul being, Nnoi." Szayel. He wasn't a bad person per-say. He could be annoying as fuck though sometimes, with his ivy-league medical education and constant motormouth. If Ulquiorra was their portable hacker the pink-haired doc was their portable forensics team and medic. He was concealed in behind curtains to the right of the alter. By far, Starrk and Ulquiorra were the least conspicuous, unlike Grimmjow, Nnoitra, and Szayel. Nnoitra with his monstrous height and Grimmjow and Szayel with their cotton candy hair did not blend as well and therefore the other two were integrated into the wedding guests seamlessly while the others watched from afar.

Not that Nnoitra was wrong though. The few pictures of Karen Kurosaki that they had found were of a small, runty, middle-school tomboy. Nothing like this beautiful bombshell of a young woman standing next to her equally attractive sister. Long black hair was piled artistically on her head with a singular thick stray lock trailing down her bare back due to the cut of her luminous golden dress. The blue rose pinned to her dress was starkly different from the red and black bouquet in her hands. Dark, calculating eyes, swept across the crowd, only pausing when they settled back on her sister in her beautifully expensive and lacy dress. Neither sister was terribly tall but Karen was striking in her own way, lips painted a seductive blood red, shoulders creamy and flawless, stance straight and commanding, never fidgeting. A beautiful, powerful, intimidating woman. As a daughter of a Yakuza boss, she probably had a lot more responsibility that the average 19-year old.

"So she's our mysterious benefactor." The soft voice of the team hacker filtered though Grimmjow's ear piece. Grimmjow could practically hear the gears of his team cranking. Why would Karen Kurosaki sell out her own brother? Were family relations not good? The man hadn't shown up to his father's funeral, Grimmjow supposed, but really, they didn't have enough info to make an accurate assumption on interfamilial relationships. Possibly something to do with old man Zangetsu's mysterious will? Grimmjow's team had been unable to access the document, or even find out if it even existed. Thinking of it began to put Grimmjow in a bad mood again, but he shouldered on. Sibling rivalry? Personal vendetta? Money? Power? the list went on and on.

"Looks like the ceremony is over." Starrk's voice shook everyone from their musings as the wedding guests surged upwards, moving either to congratulate the newlyweds or outside to vehicles that would take them to the location of the reception. Grimmjow swiftly turned to begin his decent from the rafters, speaking smartly into his microphone as he took the stairs two by two.

"Follow little girl blue. I'm not going back to that stupid-ass office empty handed. Stay low, and keep your mouths shut. That means you, Szayel." Grimmjow spoke sternly. The last thing they needed was for Szayel to open his trap and call some Yakuza boss an unseemly name and all have yakuza bosses on their respective asses, with the mission rendered impossible.

A small, annoyed 'tsk' carried though Grimmjow's earpiece before the pink-haired doc muttered an affirmation. No one wanted to screw this up now that they finally had a lead.

At the exit of the church, Grimmjow allowed himself to be carried out with the crowd, keeping his eyes forward and not garnering unwanted attention with unforeseen eye contact. Having bright blue hair was bad enough as it was. Sure, there were a lot of unusual characters at this wedding to begin with, but better safe than sorry. Approaching his sleek black convertible, Grimmjow again noted that he had made a good choice considering all the equally sleek, if not much more expensive black cars that seemed to be a staple for any gang, ever.

Starrk was suddenly at his side as he reached the vehicle and the both of them hopped in, allowing small smiles of enjoyment to grace their faces as they exchanged menial comments about the ceremony for the benefit of the guests around them. Out of the corner of his eye, Grimmjow saw a flash of pink disappear into a nearby black car and hoped that Nnoitra wouldn't end up somehow 'accidentally' killing Szayel on the way to the reception. He really couldn't afford to go looking for another medic slash forensic expert of Szayel's caliber. He seriously doubted there was another person like the doctor in the world, really.

As they turned out of the church parking lot, following the train of black cars crowding behind the white newlywed's limousine, Grimmjow rolled his shoulders again. Finally something was happening. He thanked any gods that might exist for this turn of events.

"Grimm." The blue-haired agent turned to look at his lazy looking teammate as the handsome man tilted his head back, relaxing in the warm spring sunshine. Starrk looked almost peaceful in his equally handsome tux, the warm red dress shirt and black vest complimenting his maroon tie. A small glare shot off of the gold wolf pin on his tie.

"Yeah?" Grimmjow turned his eyes back to the road. 10 bucks said Starrk was about to tell him some sage wisdom that would somehow pertainin to the capture of this Ichigo Kurosaki.

"Am I the only on who gets the feeling that this is too goddamn easy?"

_'Hm, never mind then.'_ "No, yer not." Grimmjow replied, not missing a beat. "Shit's way too fuckin' easy."

Grimmjow made a sharp turn, following the expensive black car in front of him before he continued.

"This is only the beginning. This Kurosaki guy is just…the tip of the iceberg. There must be reason his own sister's selling him out, 'specially considering how the old man's hasn't been dead in his grave for even a year."

"And that will."

Grimmjow nodded shortly. "Somethin's up…." Grimmjow trailed off into his own thoughts.

"Ya know, we may never find out why all this shit is happening."

Grimmjow nodded again, this time more slowly. It was true. Their only orders were to find Kurosaki and bring him in. Nothing about an investigation. That would be left to others most likely. Certainly, his team was highly qualified for international search and seize. They were a tracking team. One of the best. But they were seldom told why they were searching for a particular person. They did their job, brought the person in, or in some cases, made sure that the person would never be found again. Ever. But that was it.

Sometimes this pissed Grimmjow off, especially instances like this where there were so many pieces of the damn puzzle missing. But it was his job, and he did it well. Even before Grimmjow had been an agent he always got his man. No matter what.

They pulled up to a very grand looking hotel and Grimmjow tossed the valet his keys carelessly, striding into the hotel entrance with Starrk at his side. In the lobby Grimmjow spotted Nnoitra leering, Szayel silently fuming, and Ulquiorra massaging his temple with a pale hand. Grimmjow rolled his eyes and approached the trio with Starrk.

"If you two can't play nice, I'm never talking you anywhere. Ever. Again." Grimmjow managed to growl out, not looking either of the guilting parties in the eye.

"The freak started it." The lanky darker haired man snarled through his leer. Given what Nnoitra usually wore, namely holey thermal shirts and cut off sweats, the agent looked pretty slick in his fitted suit and vest. Certainly the vest was unbuttoned like the neck of his dress shirt and his tie loosened, but he still looked like a bandanaed stud.

"If you don't shut up, my taser is going to finish it for you." Grimmjow turned to raise an eyebrow at the usually calm Ulquiorra. The hacker also looked extremely nice in his formal tux with a light green dress shirt underneath. Pale as usual, Grimmjow also noted how prominent the dark crescents under those luminous jade eyes had become. He wondered if he had similar circles under his own eyes.

"Lets just go in," snapped an ill-tempered Szayel, who turned on his expensively shod heel and headed for the wide open doors of the reception hall. Grimmjow turned to Starrk, eyebrow still raised. The older agent merely shrugged and started after the purple-shirted doctor. After shooting warning glance at Nnoitra, Grimmjow took his time catching up with Szayel and Starrk.

Turning the corner into the hall Grimmjow almost ran into a young man exiting. Meaning to skirt around him, Grimmjow frowned when they young man grabbed his bicep gentle and the agent found himself looking into very red eyes framed by flowing black hair.

"Excuse me, would you happen to know where Tensa-sama is?" Grimmjow blinked at the voice. It was purring baritone. The man's tanned face was flawless, almost like a girl's, with full lips and a straight nose. Dark eyelashes framed innocent red eyes. Grimmjow assumed that the man was wearing contacts, and the eyelashes seemed heavy, as if he was wearing mascara. Grimmjow's eyes dropped to the man's suit. Dolce & Gabbana, without a doubt. And god, how well the man wore it. A red dress shirt complimented his eyes and a thin black tie completed his classy look. The hand on his bicep lifted and Grimmjow noted its long thin fingers and well-cared for nails. Those red eyes blinked at him, waiting for a reply.

"I'm sorry, no." Grimmjow said fluidly as he took as step back, gesturing for the man to pass and offering a small smile. Speak as little as possible, don't bring attention to yourself.

"Pity. I was hoping to find him before he disappeared." The man's face alit with his own small smile as he gracefully passed by Grimmjow. The man was slightly shorter than Grimmjow and his spicy scent wafted up to meet the blue-haired man. Grimmjow dropped his smile as he assessed his slightly accelerated heartbeat. He couldn't afford to be distracted during a mission. The blue-haired man tore his eyes away from those slightly swaying hips and dark ponytail of silken ebony to raise an eyebrow at the slowly approaching Nnoitra and definitely faster Ulquiorra. Nnoitra's head was craned to watch the red-eyed man's receding figure.

Grimmjow waited at the entryway for Ulqiorra to pass through and reached up to smack the back of Nnoitra's head. Nnoitra turned to half-heartedly shove Grimmjow. "The fuck was that for?"

"How about we keep the blood upstairs, ne? Don't act like a fucking idiot just because you want a nice piece of ass."

Nnoitra shrugged as he entered the hall. "Not my type anyway."

Grimmjow rolled his eyes again. He glanced around the lobby one last time, but the dark haired man was no where to be seen. Shaking his head to rid it of visions of those fake red eyes, Grimmjow stepped into the reception hall. But try as he might he could not shake one thought.

Who the hell was Tensa-sama?

**A/N: Continue, yea or nay?**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I really like this story. Second chapter to see what y'alls think.**

**Disclaimer: No es mio.**

**Warning: Cussing, yaoi...hm. Kissing?**

Grimmjow spotted this team standing near an empty table, but like most of the people present, not sitting yet. As Grimmjow approached the group of handsome men he noted that someone was approaching him. Karen looked extremely commanding as she neared him, high heels clicking and wedding guests bowing respectfully as she passed. Grimmjow stopped and waited patiently until the eldest daughter of Getsuga Zangetsu was near enough before bowing himself, like a proper japanese man.

Karen nodded at this. "I see visiting your sister has done you some good, Jaegerjacques-san," she said as she stopped in front of him. She spoke in her native language.

Grimmjow kept his face blank as he straightened from his bow. "It has helped me more than once when dealing with your family, Kurosaki-dono." Grimmjow replied in fluent japanese. How did the woman know about his sister? He had worked hard to keep her secret and therefore safe. Not even one member of his team knew she existed. Of course, Karen Kurosaki was practically a Yakuza boss heir herself. She probably knew more than the whole of the CIA combined. She certainly knew more about Ichigo Kurosaki than he did, Grimmjow mused as he noted the fresh looking blue rose pinned to her dress, with a small garland of baby's breath around it. Wait, was that baby's breath dead? It was black….

Karen smiled and the resulting look was surprisingly stunning. Karen Kurosaki did not look like the kind of woman that smiled often and when she did. Wow. If Grimmjow had not been gay, his heart might have been working overtime.

"You are a man with excellent credentials, I hope you will refrain from making a scene at my sisters wedding."

Grimmjow made a smaller bow. "We will work as quietly as we can."

Karen nodded again. Her gaze suddenly went a little distant as she looked at his shoulder. "I hope…I will not act rashly."

Grimmjow almost raised an eyebrow at that, but restrained himself. He could not help the surprised look on his face though and when Karen saw it she smiled again.

"I know, I do not strike you as a temperamental woman do I?" That distant gaze was back suddenly. "But Ichi-nii…is a very special man."

The blue-haired agent said nothing as he watched the expression on Karen's face change from distracted to slightly pained and then to a mask of cool confidence again. It took less than a second and Grimmjow knew that wasn't a look one could fake. And she called him Ichi-_nii_, a name pregnant with endearment. Why was she doing this if it pained her?

Suddenly Karen's gaze was on him again, or rather on the blue flower pinned to his lapel. "Your rose is looking a little wilted there, Jaegerjacques-san." Her delicate creamy hands rose to her own flower, removing the pin that kept it fastened to her dress and stepping forward. Her hands had to reach up to unpin his own flower. Grimmjow was a tall man and the top of Karen's intricately piled hair barely came to his chin, even though she was wearing stiletto heels. There was a familiar spicy smell mixed with the sweet smell that hung around roses. Grimmjow kept his face blank as Karen stepped away, his old, not-wilted-in-the-least rose in her hand and her old garland one now pinned to the lapel of his tux.

He held out his hand to the rose gesturing with the other to her dress. "May I?"

Karen's dark eyes connected with Grimmjow's crystalline blue before giving a small nod. Without breaking eye contact Grimmjow stepped forward to slowly and deliberately pin his blue flower to the same spot her old rose had been. It reminded him of pinning another flower to another woman's dress long ago. Though Karen Kurosaki looked nothing like his sister.

After he had finished pinning the flower Grimmjow did not move, looking into those dark eyes and asking. Asking with his cold eyes. Why? Why was she doing this? Your reactions make no sense Miss Kurosaki, you love your bother. So why?

Her eyes were just as cold and much less talkative. But he caught something after he took a step away and before he bowed. A small flash of sadness that he had a feeling was somehow not related to Ichigo Kurosaki.

As he came up from his bow he was certain. There was third party that hadn't been introduced to the equation yet. Someone important. But who?

Grimmjow registered Karen Kurosaki's voice as she spoke good-naturedly, no hint of that small sad look in her words. "It's a pity you are French, Jaegerjacques-san. You would have made an exceptional addition to the Yakuza. Unfortunately, we japanese are not as lenient in our membership as the Mexican cartels. One must have japanese blood running in their veins to have the honor of being inked."

Grimmjow smiled at the reference to the tattoo that all Yakuza sported at the base of their neck but frowned internally at her mention of the Mexican cartels. Precious few knew about his years as a gunrunner in southern Mexico. He would like to keep it that way. Damn the Yakuza and their matchless intel network.

"I am glad you approve of me Kurosaki-dono."

Karen smiled again. "I approve of your whole team, Pantera-san."

Grimmjow cringed internally at the old nickname and the fact that his whole team could hear though the microphone in his lapel. On the surface he retained his easy-going smile. "I hope your brother is less of a tease than you are, miss."

Karen's smile suddenly turned sly. "Prepared to be disappointed, Sexta-san."

And she was gone, clicking away on those heels, taking his blue rose with her. This time Grimmjow did cringe, or rather, his eye twitched unwarranted. That name could get him fired, and it had nothing to do with gunrunning….

Slightly stiffer than usual, Grimmjow made his way to the beautifully decorated table his team was now sitting at. He made no eye contact and restrained from flopping down and rubbing his temples, completely exhausted. He sat down stiffly, fingers intertwined over the placemat in front of him.

"Put the phone away, Ulquiorra." Grimmjow said coldly. He didn't have to look up to know that the hacker agent was feverishly tapping away on his amped-up iPhone. That little gadget was fancier than the finest piece of alienware and he was pretty sure the access power it had was probably illegal in several countries. Including this one.

Grimmjow breathed through his nose before looking every one of his team member in the eye.

His look said,_ 'I don't ask about your pasts. Don't ask about mine.'_

"We'll talk about this later," he said out loud.

The whole table was quiet now, Ulquiorra having obediently set his phone next to his silverware.

"So that was the sign?" Starrk drawled as he lolled his head almost lazily, his perceptively scanning eyes deceiving him.

Grimmjow nodded as he allowed his hand to ghost over Karen Kurosaki's flower in his lapel. His eyes moved to the high table, where the bride and the groom sat, with Karen at her twin's side in place of old man Zangetsu and their mother. As far as Ulquiorra had discovered, the Kurosakis' mother was dead. There had certainly been no other information, not even the woman's name. Rumor was that Yuzu Kurosaki looked like an exact carbon copy of the woman. Soft brown hair that had curled in her older years and warm brown eyes that were both kind and intelligent. In her wedding dress, Yuzu looked something like an angel laughing and smiling with her new red-headed husband.

He wondered if little Yuzu knew about the plan to have her brother arrested at her wedding. It was hard to tell how things would go down. It seemed Ichigo Kurosaki had done something wrong, something to make Karen sell him out even though she loved him.

Karen would pin Grimmjow's blue rose to one of the guests tonight and that guest would be Ichigo Kurosaki.

**(I am a dancing page break. I'm FABULOUS!)**

It was the fifth course and Grimmjow had barely touched his food or drink all evening. He inspected his knuckles for the thousandth time and then turned his attention to the dance floor where the daddy-daughter dance had begun. Kisuke Urahara had lead the newly surnamed Yuzu Urahara and now many more father-daughter pairs had taken to the floor, including Retsu Unohana and her aging father Yamamoto and Kenpachi and his hyperactive daughter Yachiru. All men were surprisingly good dancers.

His eyes moved to the high table again in time to see the young man dark haired man from earlier offer a hand to Karen Kurosaki. Grimmjow watched as Karen met the man's eye with a sad smile and took his hand. Grimmjow tapped the table to get the attention of his bored team members. The group had not left the reception hall since the beginning of the evening, had not consumed any drink or alcohol and had eaten very little.

Four pairs of eyes glance to the high table before returning to their bored meanderings. They weren't stupid enough to garner unwanted attention by all staring at Karen Kurosaki as she was lead to the dancefloor by the beautiful young man. Grimmjow was the only one left watching as one by one, Ulquiorra, Szayel, and Nnoitra stood up to spread out through the hall in case Karen's parner happened to be Ichigo Kurosaki. They would eventually close in when the time came.

The wedding had been very lax in terms of weaponry and all of them had their guns on them, but their plan had centered around the possibility that they would be relieved of their guns, and that was how they were going to execute it. Plus Grimmjow hadn't wanted to incur the wrath of a room full of Yakuza by drawing their weapons. They would take Ichigo Kurosaki without them.

Grimmjow was left with Starrk picking at his food as the red-eyed man looped an arm around Karen Kurosaki's waist. A delicate, soft hands perched on the man's shoulder and in the man's tan hand. The two began moving gracefully, weaving though the crowd of dancers. Neither black-haired heads bobbed with the rhythm of novice dancers, but twirled expertly around those who were. Every other turn Grimmjow caught the soft smiling face of the red-eyed man and the smiling but sad face of Karen. Sometime durning the middle of the song the man had drawn Karen closer to that her arms were around his neck and both of his arms were around her waist. His mouth was moving quickly next to her ear and when they turned Grimmjow saw Karen's face flickering from sad to accepting.

The two disappeared in the midst of the dancers and at the end of the song Karen was no longer dancing with the red-eyed man but Kisuke Urahara. The two were smiling pleasantly. The smile did not reach Karen's eyes as they met with Grimmjow's and she gave a small, almost undetectable nod. She was no longer wearing his blue flower. The rose pinned to her dress was midnight black.

Grimmjow's eyes scanned the dancers as the next song began and spotted the dark-haired man again. Dancing with the bride.

The beautiful lace of the wedding gown crowded around the legs of the man's suit as the two began to twirl to a much slower song. Grimmjow thought for a moment before he stood.

"Moving in?" came Starrks calm voice from behind him.

"Give me five minutes," Grimmjow replied without looking back. He made his way to the dance floor, eyes never leaving what he assumed were the dancing siblings. He moved strategically, to the place where he could intercept them without having to chase them. The red-eyed man spotted him as he approached but didn't lead his sister away. Just as Grimjow expected. As the couple began to twirl past him he reached out to tap the man on the shoulder. The two stopped and Yuzu looked at Grimmjow expectantly.

Grimmjow bowed. "Pardon me, Urahara-san." Grimmjow straightened as he spoke in perfect japanese. "But could I steal your partner for a song?"

It was perfectly fine, it seemed, for two men or two women to be dancing at this reception. Grimmjow had noticed Byakuya Kuchiki dancing with a tall redheaded man earlier.

Starrk was suddenly by his side. The smooth agent offered his hand to the bride. "May I, Urahara-san?"

Yuzu looked to her long-haired partner-who looked to Grimmjow, pinning him with a strangely pleasant look before nodding to Yuzu. Only after she had gotten the nod did Yuzu take Starrk's offered hand. The agent swept the bride away smoothly, leaving only Grimmjow…and Ichigo Kurosaki.

Grimmjow held out his hand to the man they had been searching for for months. A small smirk graced the man's features. A tan hand was placed in Grimmjow's and the agent slid an arm around the small waist, leading Ichigo Kurosaki into the crowd again. Grimmjow could smell spice mixed with roses as he inhaled the smell of the conman and the blue rose now pinned to the man's black suit. Grimmjow figured that was why he had noticed that Kurosaki was not wearing a rose, given that it had been black petals against a black suit.

"You are a very good dancer, Jaegerjacques-san. Do you mind if I call you Grimm? Jaegerjacques is such a mouthful."

Red irises met with baby blue. Ichigo spoke perfect english but his mouth still looked as if he was murmuring soft japanese. Grimmjow's heart beat picked up slightly but he didn't blink as he smiled his most charming crooked smile. The song had changed again and was much faster than the one before. Grimmjow lead his target strongly and Ichigo followed flawlessly in his steps, the dark-haired man dancing the backwards steps perfectly.

_'That hair is probably dyed,'_ Grimmjow thought absently. He moved his hand to brush a stray lock of the silken tresses out of the man's face.

"Thank you, Kurosaki-san, and yes. I do mind." Grimmjow's smile never faltered.

"Ah, too bad. I would really love to be on a first name basis with you, Jaegerjaques-san." Suddenly Ichigo was very close.

Grimmjow noted how Ichigo's arms encircled his neck. "Your sister mentioned you were a tease." Grimmjow merely repositioned both of his hands to be on Ichigo's hips. Those fluidly moving hips.

"Now, now, Jaegerjacques-san. We are going to be seeing a lot of each other. Don't you think we should we be on more familiar terms?" Ichigo's eyelids had dropped alluringly and his warm breath ghosted over Grimmjow's mouth.

"Not so, Kurosaki-san." Grimmjow played along with the man he was dancing with. "You know my and my team's job. All we are going to do is bring you in. You and I will never meet after today." Grimmjow let his eyes grow cold as he said these words. It was true. He was nearing the end of his assignment.

"Too bad," Ichigo mimed a pout. "You don't even want to know who Tensa-sama is?"

Grimmjow frowned. He did want to know. It had been bugging him relentlessly since he had caught sight of the man again, before he lead Karen to the floor. Grimmjow had a feeling this Tensa person was a key reason for the CIA's interest in Ichigo Kurosaki. The reason he and his team were hunting him down. Ichigo obviously knew everything about Grimmjow and his team already. He had deliberately asked Grimmjow about this mysterious Tensa-sama eariler.

"That's none of my business." Grimmjow said coldly. His job was to bring Ichigo Kurosaki in. He would do it and walk away scot-free.

Ichigo's low chuckle reached his ears. His face was getting closer. "Don't worry Grimm," the conman whispered. "It will be."

Ichigo Kurosaki's lips were soft and warm. Grimmjow closed his eyes as as he gently responded, applying a slight pressure. Ichigo's hand threaded through the blue hair at the base of his neck and Grimmjow tilted his head to deepen the kiss. Ichigo's tongue prodded at Grimmjow's mouth and Grimmjow dropped his jaw to allow the man in, his own tongue moving to meet it. Ichigo tasted delicious, like an alcoholic drink that was making his head buzz. Grimmjow felt Ichigo's heartbeat through his tailored suit beating quickly as Ichigo moved to be flush against him.

_Click._

Grimmjow opened his clear and steady eyes to watch Ichigo's red ones flutter open. The shorter man drew away from the kiss slowly, lingeringly. Full lips were slightly kiss-bruised and there was a distinct pink tint to his tan cheeks. The lips morphed into a smirk.

Eyelids still lowered and pupils still dilated with lust, Ichigo Kurosaki jingled the handcuff how encircling his wrist. The sound tinkled in Grimmjow's ear as he looked at Ichigo cooly, neither smiling or frowning.

"Looks like you got me."

Grimmjow said nothing as he pulled Ichigo hand away by the handcuffs, twirling him around as if they were still dancing. As he twirled him, Grimmjow admired Ichigo Kurosaki last time. Worried lips. Long fake hair. Shining fake red eyes. Lowered mascaraed eyelashes. Slim waist accented by his form fitting suit. Hips that were meant to be swayed. Handcuffs twinkling in the soft light of the reception hall.

Beautiful.

Grimmjow stopped the twirl so that Ichigo was facing away from Grimmjow and the agent clicked the other handcuff onto the conman's other wrist. The two had now completely stopped dancing. Wedding guests around them slowed as the realized what had happened. Soon no one was dancing any more and the space around Grimmjow and Ichigo had emptied of people as they backed away. As they backed away four figures moved forward so that Grimmjow's team now surrounded them on all sides.

"Let's assume I read you your rights, ne?" Grimmjow spoke softly to the man he had arrested. "You're not going to fight this in any event."

Grimmjow could practically feel the smile in Ichigo's voice. "Of course not."

That confirmed it.

Grimmjow raised his voice to the wedding guests. "We apologize for this disturbance," Grimmjow's eyes moved listlessly over the crowd. "Continue with your celebration." His eyes locked with Karen Kurosaki's for a moment.

Karen Kurosaki hadn't sold her brother out.

Grimmjow moved his gaze to the entrance of the reception hall as he put a hand on Ichigo's shoulder, prompting the seductive man to move. His team created a close knit wall wound them, though they needn't have minded.

Ichigo Kurosaki wanted to get arrested.

Question was- Why?

**A/N: Review, bitches. Por favor.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Points for favoritism.**

**Disclaimer: I disclaim.**

**Warning: Ichigo getting very turned on and Grimmjow being a bamf. And cussing.**

How Grimmjow had found himself 'interrogating' Ichigo Kurosaki, he wasn't exactly sure. Sure he was qualified. Yeah he worked for the CIA. But was that in his job description? Fuck no. He was sent to find people. Something screwy was going on with this prison, he swore.

He shuffled the papers in front of him once more, trying to kill time before he had to actually start asking Ichigo questions, half hoping someone who was actually supposed to interrogate the man would show up and relieve him of the duty. He knew his superiors were probably watching this feed live but he honestly didn't care. They wouldn't fire him, he was too good at what he did. He was tired as fuck and wanted out of this damn suit. Oh yeah, he hadn't gotten the chance to change either. All he had managed was to shed the overcoat and loosen the tie. He still had his gun strapped to his chest and the knife that was attached to the holster.

Grimmjow ran his hand through his already tousled hair. Everyone else had been allowed to go home but it seemed that no one qualified to interrogate was on duty at the prison so Grimmjow had been shanghaied into filling in. Something about screwed up work schedules. But they seemed to want to get information out of Ichigo as soon as possible, as if they didn't expect him to be there for long or something. Something was definitely up with Ogichi High-Level Security Prison.

He looked over at Ichigo Kurosaki once again, as if he would magically begin talking and tell him all the shit he needed to know so he would be able to go home and get a god-damn night's sleep. Grimmjow wanted to sigh in frustration as the now grey garbed man just smiled pleasantly back at him. It seemed the conman had been allowed a shower before being given prison clothes. Long orange hair was drying to a luminescent glowing ember, all traces of the temporary black dye washed away. His eye contacts had also been removed and Grimmjow had to admit-Ichigo Kurosaki's eyes could probably melt the heart of the most hardened criminal. The man looked even hotter than he had a few hours earlier. He played with a single lock of his drying hair, absently pressing it to his lips with both hands as he glanced around, apparently half-bored with how slow the proceedings were going. Full almost golden eyelashes beat like delicate moth's wings as Ichigo blinked at everything around him. Ichigo's doe like eyes would probably get him claimed in a minute in a prison like this. He was indeed, the perfect bitch. He almost girl-like face and male model body were sure to get him fucked before 48 hours had passed.

Grimmjow found himself sighing that sigh he had tried to keep in as he gathered the papers up again, finally preparing to ask the first question.

"What time is it?"

Grimmjow blinked at Ichigo's own sudden question. "Um," was all he could manage for a moment before he gathered his wits enough to check his watch. Geez, he was really out of it. "2:51."

Grimmjow almost groaned at what he had just said. All the man wanted to do was cross his arms on the uncomfortable metal table in front of him, nestle his head in them, and sleep. But he didn't. Instead he picked up the styrofoam cup of cold coffee the Prison guards had provided him and down the entire cold and bitter sludge in one go.

"Good."

Grimmjow peered over the edge of of his cup at the relaxed Ichigo. Little fucker. This damn kid was the reason Grimmjow was here. In this damn place. Charged with doing some other fuck's job.

Screw 'im.

The blue-haired agent looked to where he knew the recording camera was and flipped his 'superiors' the bird before tossing the interrogation forms over his shoulder and standing to leave.

"Bored already?" Grimmjow stopped in his tracks at the low purr. He half turned to to look at Ichigo smirking that damn smirk of his before twirling all the way around, leaning against the door as he contemplated the gorgeous man in front of him.

"Sweetcheeks, there ain't nothing ya can say to keep me here for one more fuckin' second. If ya do, I suggest you smile in that direction," Grimmjow gestured at the camera he had flipped off. "And annunciate."

Ichigo 'tsked' and moved a hand to brush a lock of orange hair out of his eyes, the other hand following it with a clink of the handcuffs. "Too bad. Things are about to get very interesting."

Grimmjow frowned. "Look, this isn't what I'm paid to do. I'm paid to bring your ass in and I've done that. Now if you'll excuse me." the blue-haired agent turned to grasp the handle of the door and get the fuck out of there.

"How about a quick fuck before you go?"

Grimmjow span around to see Ichigo rising from his chair. The younger man began slinking towards him smiling slyly. Grimmjow frowned as the seductive Yakuza member sidled up to his side hand moving to slide over his chest.

Grimmjow didn't budge as he looked Ichigo coldly in the eye and said, "I don't fuck when I'm on duty."

"But you said this wasn't your job." Ichigo's head tilted playfully as he lifted his handcuffs over Grimmjow's head so his hands would be at the base of the agent's neck.

Alarm bells were going off in Grimmjow's head but he still didn't move. With a twist of his wrist, Ichigo could strangle Grimmjow with his handcuffs. In what little on Ichigo his team had, there was no mention about any possible physical prowlness. But common sense pointed out the fact that Ichigo was probably raised in a Yakuza household and Grimmjow knew how powerful lithe swimmer's muscles could be, he did work with Nnoitra after all. Best not to make sudden threatening movements.

"Doesn't mean I'm not on duty." Grimmjow turned away from Ichigo so one ear could catch any sounds on the other side of the door. The hall sounded deserted. No scuffling of bored guards or loud breathing. Great. Just great.

"Geez what a prude." The handcuffs clinked again as Ichigo released him from his possible death grip. "Don't you have any fun Jaegerjacques-san?"

"No." Grimmjow grunted shortly. He couldn't leave Ichigo alone in an interrogation room. Jesus, what kind of a prison was this?

Grimmjow watched as Ichigo hopped his ass up onto the metal table without the use of his hands. Grimmjow almost laughed at how childish the man looked when he did it before shaking his head. He must be really fucking out of it.

Suddenly curious, he asked, "How old are you?"

"Shouldn't that information already be in your files?" Ichigo smirked at him from his perch.

"You know it isn't, so answer the fucking question." Grimmjow crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back into the door again. It really wasn't, Ichigo Kurosaki had no birth certificate. All they knew for sure was 6 years ago, he had enrolled into MIT, had graduated early and done a few very small con jobs. Everything else was more or less guesswork.

"Hm. I guess I can tell you that." Ichigo stretched his arms over his head and rocked backwards until he was half sprawled on the table, legs dangling over the edge. "I'm 24. And you're 25. Or at least you will be for 3 months and 12 more days."

Grimmjow's frowned deepened. "Thanks for reminding me, I might have forgotten." Grimmmjow's hand moved to undo the first three buttons on his dress shirt. So this kid knew about him. He was probably the one who had told Karin Kurosaki all those things about him. So it was expected of a Yakuza level hack. But how else was Ichigo Kurosaki special...?

"Why did you get yourself arrested?" Grimmjow asked not looking at his charge.

"That's a question built off of bold assumptions, Mr. Jaegerjacques." Ichigo didn't even have the decency to even _act_ a little insulted. The man was beaming at Grimmjow when he turned to look at him exasperatedly.

"Cut the shit and talk, Kurosaki," Grimmjow muttered tiredly as he lifted a hand to massage his temple.

"I'm here to get my bother out of prison."

Grimmjow's eyebrow rose as his hand dropped. "Please tell me you're shitting me."

Ichigo wiggled himself into an upright position. "And why would I do that, Jaegerjacques-san?" If it wasn't so beautiful, that smile might have been very creepy.

Ulquiorra had never found any information about a _brother_. Twin sisters, yeah, Yakuza father, yeah. Brother? Nope. Grimmjow felt like he was getting kicked in the professional balls over and over again with this kid. First, he can't even find the damn guy. Second, the man wants to get himself arrested. And now a brother. Fuck. Way to kick a guy when he's down.

"Now your gonna tell me you designed this damn prison." Grimmjow half-groaned. This was fucking perfect. Now he knew Ichigo's motive. Better tell the higher ups or something. As soon as his proverbial balls stopped busting.

"Actually, I did."

Grimmjow's eyes shot open to stare at the grinning conman.

Ichigo pointed at himself with both hands. "MIT certified Architect, remember? Have you ever said the word 'Ogichi' over and over again, Grimmjow? It sounds like it has the same letters as- Oh, I don't know- a certain smoking-hot conman's name?"

Grimmjow rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying as hard as he could to wake up from this nightmare. Motherfucker designed the damn place. Had a fucking brother here. Well the obvious thing to do was to get a prison transfer, ASAP. Jesus, they knew abso-fucking-lutely nothing about this guy.

Of course that brought up the question of why the guy was even telling him.

Grimmjow move his hands from his eye to look at the man propped up on the metal table.

"What time is it, Grimmjow?"

Oh no. Oh fucking no.

The short notice interrogation, the funky way the prison system was working, him spilling the beans completely about his brother. The CIA knew he wouldn't be here long because he had done this before, probably under another alias. Because of another alias, none of the prison people knew what was going on. '_Too bad. Things are about to get very interesting.'_

Motherfucking shit. Ichigo Kurosaki didn't have three seasons of Prisonbreak in mind. He was getting himself and his brother out. Tonight.

Tonight...

Suddenly Grimmjow stopped panicking.

If Ichigo went free...the chase would be back on.

Gimmjow liked that idea.

Most of the search for Ichigo before hand had been boring desk-work, nothing interesting at all. If Ichigo went free now and Grimmjow was sent after him and he had a real lead...it would be a real hunt.

And he was sure this Ichigo guy could give him a run for his money. Grimmjow's eyes flicked up to meet Ichigo's sepia orbs. The man knew what he was thinking. Right now. He would see the cunning calculation taking place behind those irises. If Ichigo was his prey... Grimmjow practically felt his blood singing. He managed to keep a hungry leer off of his face while his inner hunter was chanting an impatient mantra, '_Prey, prey, prey, prey, prey!'_

Prey.

Real prey.

Not some half-assed criminal with a bounty on his head. Not some fat rich guy that needed talking care of.

Someone to chase.

Someone to hunt.

PREY.

Grimmjow didn't blink as he stared into Ichigo's eyes. There was a small problem of course. What If Ichigo stopped running? If his objective was just to bust out his brother and run, Grimmjow could easily catch him and it would all be over as quickly as it had started. Catching people who wanted to hide was too easy. He liked prey who were running to something. Not away. They had more drive. More initiative.

"There's more to this story you know." Grimmjow blinked at the words Ichigo spoke, like an unvoiced prayer being answered. The agent said nothing, silently urging the conman to continue.

"I'm…looking. For someone." Ichigo took his weight off of the table rising his arms so he could intertwine his fingers at the base of his neck, a non-threatening, relaxed pose.

_'Tensa.'_ Grimmjow's mind supplied, unbidden. '_"Excuse me, would you happen to know where Tensa-sama is?" He's 'still' looking for this Tensa person.'_

"I'm breaking my brother out of jail again because he's a good tracker, almost as good as you," Ichigo continued. "And he would kill me if I didn't take him along. Tensa means a lot to him as well." Ichigo's eyes flicked away first as he said this.

Grimmjow said nothing. Ichigo had a long-term goal and a short term goal. From that side-long glance he could tell Ichigo would be emotionally invested into his long term one, very driven. The kid was smart. Resourceful. Talented in ways Grimmjow probably didn't know about yet.

It was almost to good to be true.

The real reason Grimmjow had not wanted to interrogate the kid was really not because he was tired but because he would have never had a chance to really delve into the puzzle that was Ichigo Kurosaki. There would have been a short Q and A session before he would have been shipped of to an actual interrogator. A thirst unquenched, a need unsatisfied. But now. Now. Now Grimmjow now knew that Ichigo had rigged the deck so that Grimmjow was the card on top. He had planned all this.

And now Grimmjow had a choice.

In about 5 minutes something was going to happen and Grimmjow could either move out of the way and let Ichigo go on the pretense that Ichigo was telling the truth and Grimmjow could chase him to god knows where…or. He could stop him. Knock him out. Throw him in cell. Call for an immediate prison transfer. Do his 'job' as a CIA agent.

"So, Grimm." Ichigo's beautiful chocolate eyes were somehow dancing in the pale florescent lights of the interrogation room. "Any last minute questions before I go?"

Grimmjow moved off of the door to the wall next to it. He made his choice. "I told you not to call be Grimm." Grimmjow watched Ichigo roll his eyes. "Why blue?"

An eyebrow lifted. "Why do you think?"

"Not because of me." Tensa. Blue rose. Black rose. The clues were there, but Grimmjow didn't know what they meant yet. Karin Kurosaki could have just pointed her brother out, but the mastermind hadn't wanted that. Ichigo had deliberately set up the roses. Symbolism.

"Ah, aren't we modest?" Ichigo span on the metal table so he was facing away from Grimmjow. The yakuza hack gathered all of his hair and brought it to the front, beginning to braid it. A splotch of black stood out against the tan skin of his neck.

The image struck Grimmjow with curiosity. In the Yakuza, there were numbered sections. There were the head of the sections, or divisions, people like Yamamoto or Byakuya Kuchiki who were the leaders of the sections had not only the small tattoo on the base of their neck, but a larger tattoo of the number, that spread across their back to signify their superiority.

What division was Ichigo in? Grimmjow wondered. Ulquiorra had never discovered any information on the Kurosakis' division number, though it was obvious they answered to their father. Hell, they didn't even know what division Getsuga Zangetsu had been leader of. The curiosity drove Grimmjow's body into motion as he said, "Well, since we're on the subject of me…why me?"

Grimmjow had a small inkling as to why he was here. Something to do with…his past occupations most likely. But why did he really need him? Ichigo could have easily gotten around any interrogator that came in to question. He could have bated any man into letting him so, and he had said it already said he had a tracker- his own brother. Why had he used his hacker skills (and he had used them, Grimmjow had no doubt) to get him into the questioner's seat? Why did he want Grimmjow chasing him? For the fun of it? No. He had known the man less than 24 hours and he already knew that Ichigo Kurosaki never did something just for the hell of it.

Ichigo was taking a little time in replying as he braided his hair and Grimmjow came up next to the man. After a moment of consideration Grimmjow leaned forward so that his breath would brush against the nape of Ichigo's neck and planted both hands on the edge of the table that Ichigo was perched on, effectively caging the smaller man from behind. Ichigo had practically told him how to get answers out of him.

Ichigo Kurosaki responded to physical provocation.

"Well?" he murmured against the ink-darkened skin of Ichigo's neck. The tattoo was very different by yakuza standards. Shockingly so. It was a manji in the center of a 4-sided diamond. No number. Just a swastika-like character pregnant with potential relevance in Grimmjow's swift-approaching hunt.

"Already you know me so well, Jaegerjacques-san," Grimmjow heard the smirk in the man's voice. Paying no attention to comment, Grimmjow pressed his lips to the manji symbol, inhaling the still spicy scent of the younger man. Even a thorough prison shower could not rid Ichigo of his appealing smell. Underneath his lips, Grimmjow felt Ichigo give the smallest shudder.

"Careful now, Grimmy. You're on candid camera."

Grimmjow also ignored this comment. He was doing his job. Getting the scent. Finding the symbolism in Ichigo's actions. So he could hunt the man down after he disappeared in 3 minutes. Grimmjow trailed his kisses up Ichigo's displayed neck. His tongue flicked out to lick the sensitive cartilage of the man's ear. Ichigo shivered more noticeably.

"What time is it, Grimm?"

"You're bad at this interrogation thing." Grimmjow nipped at Ichigo's extremely warm skin, tugging at his earlobe.

"What time is it?" The question came out almost as a whine.

"Why blue?" Grimmjow didn't use his hands or the side of his cheek. The only thing Ichigo could feel was Grimmjow's mouth. On his skin. Grimmjow kissed the corner of Ichigo's jaw.

"Grimmmm." That was definitely a whine. A horny, desperate whine.

"Why me? Come on now, Kurosaki-san. Time, as we both know, is running out."

Ichigo panted softly as Grimmjow made his way back to his neck and began to suck and worry at the tanned skin.

"What time. Is. It?" Ichigo managed.

"2:59," Grimmjow murmured. "Why blue, Ichigo?"

Ichigo shuddered at the sound of his name, more violently this time. Grimmjow could imagine how the younger man looked. Hot. Bothered. Eyes fluttering. Lip bruised from being bitten at. Sexy. Horny to the point of distraction. Grimmjow slowly sunk his slightly sharpened canines into the flawless skin. Ravaging. Marking. Claiming.

"Weapons."

Grimmjow stopped.

"Cars."

Weapons and cars.

Grimmjow pulled away from Ichigo. "Good to know."

Grimmjow pulled the metal chair he had been sitting in away from the table and sat in it, legs planted solidly on the ground and arms crossed over his chest as he looked blandly at the slowly straightening Ichigo.

"You're welcome," came the bubbly voice of Ichigo as he flipped his finished braid over his shoulder, completely normal again- as if he had not just been completely turned on. The conman didn't look at the agent. Grimmjow checked his watch again.

15 seconds.

"See you around, Grimm." The voice sounded satisfied, almost smug.

9 seconds.

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed. "I told you-"

"See you around, Grimm."

5 seconds.

"…yeah."

1 second.

He would be seeing a lot of Ichigo Kurosaki.

**A/N: How about being awesome and reviewing? I also have another story- 'Return'- if you like what I'm doing here *wink wink*.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I love reviews. They make me write-happy. Kind of like trigger-happy, but much better for you guys.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Hah.**

**Warning: Slight incest. Yaoi. Cussing.**

Grimmjow jerked awake as someone kicked the metal table he was sleeping on, causing the vibrations to thunder through his skull. Handcuffs clinked as he lifted his head from his arms to peer at his superior officer, Barragan Louisenbairn. The man's mangled mug was frowning down at him.

Grimmjow dropped his head back into his arms. Whatever. Grimmjow figured it was about 3 in the afternoon, which meant he had been sleeping for about 10 hours. Not including interruptions. Not nearly long enough if you asked him.

"Get the fuck out, can't you see I'm sleeping? Old fart."

There was a loud clanging sound as Barragan kicked the table again, sending shockwaves through Grimmjow's already pounding head. Since the metal table was bolted to the ground it didn't move per-say but it vibrated like motherfucker. Grimmjow winced, but did not get up again. He had worked overtime last night, Barragan be damned.

"Ichigo Kurosaki escaped last night."

Grimmjow cracked one bleary eye at the cold, rough voice of his boss. "Ya think I don't fucking know that?" Grimmjow jingled the handcuffs so they clanged against the leg of the table for emphasis.

"Ichigo Kurosaki escaped from an interrogation room with one of the most qualified CIA agents in the world, broke a homicidal manic out of his cell, and left out the god-damned front door. In the dark."

"Not complete dark." Grimmjow pointed out aloofly as he nestled his face into the crook of his arm. Hm. It was warm and dark in the crook of his arm. So nice.

"And while the whole damn prison is in an uproar the most qualified CIA agent within a hundred miles is no where to be seen. No one knows where he is. Similarly, no one knows how. The fuck. Ichigo Kurosaki got out of the state's _best guarded high-level security prison_. Until it occurs to the fucking idiots who run the damn place to go over the security cameras of _all_ the interrogation rooms. Because, for some reason, the recording of the room that Ichigo Kurosaki was _supposed_ to be held in showed nothing but an empty, lit room. But before the geniuses who run the place came up with this magnificent idea, the guard who had first brought prisoner Ichigo Kurosaki to his appointed interrogation room checked said room and was told to- and I quote- '_Get the fuck out_' because the most _god-damned fucking qualified CIA agent in the motherfucking building_ was '_trying to fucking sleep'_. HANDCUFFED TO THE FUCKING TABLE NO LESS."

Barragan was now fairly busting Grimmjow's eardrum as the man was shouting directly into his ear.

Grimmjow sighed into his arm. "Have you seen the tape?"

Grimmjow was relieved when Barragan straightened up, voice not so close to his sensitive ears. "Yes! I have! As a matter of fact, I'm sure every guard in this fucking prison has seen it by now. In addition, and not limited to, _my_ bosses, Grimmjow. Yes, I have people I have to answer to for your work or _lack thereof_, I should say."

"…so I've got the job, correct?" Grimmjow blinked his eyes in the crook of his arm, feeling his eyelashes brush against the material of his dress shirt.

There was a long pause.

"Yes."

Grimmjow smiled into his arm.

"You will brief your team in 25 minutes and leave as soon as possible." Grimmjow heard a jingle of a key and felt the handcuffs leave the skin of his wrists, exposing them to cool air of the interrogation room. "I hope you've got a fucking great plan up your sleeve , Grimmjow. If you come back empty handed after this one, I may shoot you myself."

Grimmjow lifted his head, smiling crookedly up at his boss. "Have I ever let you down, old man?"

Barragan's shrewd eyes narrowed. "Just get the hell up, Grimmjow." The older man pocketed the handcuffs that had kept Grimmjow chained to the metal interrogation table all night and well into the day before turning on his heel and leaving the room, frightening the two young guard escorts at the door into scrabbling to get out of the way.

Grimmjow sighed as he stood to follow his boss. Barragan was a hard-ass. He had been one of the best tracking agents in the field in his day. Now he just made sure people like Grimmjow and his team got their shit done, though he needn't have bothered. The only way to get on Grimmjow's team was to be driven, talented, and ruthless. Barragan barely had a job. 'Cept maybe to keep Grimmjow and Nnoitra in line. Grimmjow because sometimes he just got bored with an assignment and Nnoitra because he was, well, Nnoitra.

As Grimmjow followed Barragan though the maze of hallways until they came to a small, out of the way conference room, Grimmjow rubbed his wrists. He hadn't struggled when the lights in the interrogation room (and, he rightly assumed, the whole prison) had shut off and he found himself being chained to the metal table by a suddenly very free Ichigo Kurosaki. He remembered a pair of lips ghosting over his and no words as the the door to the room swung open and was slammed shut by its own weight. There was no sound of foot steps receding from the room.

Grimmjow had sat in dark for a while before he decided to catch a little shut eye. Right when he had managed a very comfortable position, considering he was chained to a table, the lights began flashing on and off erratically. Grimmjow had frowned and adjusted his head so his face was completely buried in his arm, effectively blocking out the lights from annoyingly penetrating his eyelids. He had managed to sleep for a few hours before that bumbling guard had come in. After he had intimidated the poor schmuck into leaving him the fuck alone he had managed a few more hours of shut-eye before Barragan had kicked his table.

Grimmjow yawned as Barragan explained how the computer connected to the large presentation screen held all the security footage of Ichigo Kurosaki's escape. Before the older agent made to leave Grimmjow requested that the audio picked up though their microphones during yesterday's arrest be available on the computer within the next 20 minutes as well. Barragan had assured him it would and left Grimmjow to catch up on Ichigo Kurosaki's escape.

There was no detectable audio of Ichigo in the first few minutes of darkness. Grimmjow assumed Ichigo had memorized the pathways he would use to get to the prisoner cells before hand. And that Ichigo had timed his escape very precisely. The very moment Ichigo had stepped into the prisoner ward the lights began flashing on and off. Grimmjow saw flashes of Ichigo scaling stairs to higher levels of cells, while in the background arms flailed out of their cells, the obscene gestures of the prisoners seeming to move in stop motion. The audio clamored with catcalls and heated, lusty curses. Ichigo reached the top level quickly and Grimmjow pondered about the absence of guards. Walking quickly and with purpose, Grimmjow watched as Ichigo stopped in front of a cell, cocking a hip and tossing his braid over his shoulder again as he seemed to talk to the person in the cell, though the words could not be heard over the din of the other prisoners. The position of the camera could not capture Ichigo's face or the person he was talking to within the cell.

But Grimmjow got an eyeful when the cell suddenly opened and a completely white figure dressed in the grey garb of a prisoner sprang forward to embrace Ichigo. Through the grainy film of the security camera Grimmjow could see Ichigo's upper body precariously pushed over the railing of the catwalk, the pale stranger obviously ravaging the more colorful man's mouth as the clamor of the prisoners became a roar of appreciation. The two continued this for a moment more, Ichigo wrapping his long swimmers leg around the waist of who Grimmjow had to assume was his brother. Pale hands tangled in fiery orange hair and tan hands gripped at broad grey shoulders before the screen blacked out completely again, though the shouts of the prisoners continued.

When the lights came back on, the kissing 'brothers' were gone. The footage then jumped to an outside camera that showed the two swiftly darkening figures striding away from the slowly closing prison gates. When the two men had completely exited the screen, the cameras cut to serval roomfuls of trapped officers in rooms that apparently locked electronically. The few guards left to roam the prison looked panicked, mashing buttons on phones that weren't working and vacantly staring at computer screens that were frozen with a .gif loop of a smiling, laughing, orange-haired man flipping off anyone who looked at the screen.

Grimmjow sat back and rubbed his eyes when the footage came to an end. Then he lunged forward to make some last minute checks on some files. After he had gotten everything ready, he sat back and relaxed until the door to the conference room swung open, and his team filed in, looking much better that Grimmjow assumed he looked. But hey, none of them had spent the night chained to metal table. So.

None of his team sat down in the comfortable chairs that surrounded the half-size conference table, instead standing and staring incredulously at their leader. Grimmjow just stared back, certain that he had circles darker than Ulquiorra's under his eyes.

"You look like shit."

Grimmjow rubbed his eyes again. "Shut the fuck up, Nnoi."

"Well you do look like shit, Grimm."

Grimmjow cringed. If Ulquiorra was agreeing with Nnoitra then he must look pretty bad.

"Just park your asses so we can get this started." Grimmjow turned to face the presentation computer again messing with the setting a little so the clips he wanted to present would play in order.

Grabbing the remote that controlled the larger screen stood up to address his now sitting team. Crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, Grimmjow skipped the crap.

"Ichigo Kurosaki is a wily bastard."

Grimmjow held up a hand before any of his team began asking questions.

"Just watch."

Grimmjow pressed a button on the remote and the 10 minute scene in the interrogation room began playing on the larger screen, beginning with Grimmjow shuffling his papers impatiently. The audio was much better than the other cameras, as well as the definition. He could clearly hear the small exchange about the time. Grimmjow watched the exasperated camera him get up to leave and the camera Ichigo get up to seduce him. He ignored the Nnoitra's snickers. Grimmjow watched his nearly undetectable expression changes as he had his small revelation. Even though he had tried to hide it Grimmjow noticed there was a definite flash of hunger in his eyes before he had quelled the expression.

The footage went onto camera Grimmjow half mauling Ichigo's neck. From the positioning of the camera Grimmjow could see how Ichigo's face morphed into a hot mess and then reverted to his natural smirk after he had straightened up. And this time Grimmjow could also see himself. The way he had closed his eyes as he turned Ichigo on with only his mouth, the carefully bland look as he had listened to Ichigo utter his two revealing words, his bored expression as he glanced at his watch to count down the seconds. He then saw the man's hands shift subtly as they somehow unlocked his handcuffs before the screen completely backed out. There was no sound until the there was the definitive slam of the door.

Grimmjow paused the video and beacon to fast-forward it to right before the lights began to flash back on and off. "Between the time the lights went off the door slammed Ichigo Kurosaki handcuffed me to the table and I was left in this position for about 11 hours." Grimmjow pressed the play and pause button quickly so the screen showed a still of Grimmjow facedown on the table, head in his arms.

Grimmjow skipped to the next clip that began with Ichigo entering the prisoner ward. "Now before I play this next part, lets talk about what the hell happened in my little interrogation room."

Grimmjow looked at his team members. Nnoitra looked like he was about to burst out laughing, spindly hand pressed to his mouth and eyes crinkled. Szayel looked slightly bored, but the man usually looked bored about anything that did not involve bodies. Ulquiorra had no expression, and was merely stating at the still of a grainy Ichigo on the screen. The man was probably dissecting how Ichigo had managed all he had so far, electronically at least. Starrk was looking at Grimmjow, probably trying to gauge what he was thinking. Accurately, no doubt. If anyone in this room knew him the best it was Starrk, though they probably all knew him pretty well.

"Well the guy's a slut."

Nnoitra had managed to gain control his laughter. Grimmjow nodded.

"Ichigo fucking loves physical attention. Wait till you see how he greeted his brother." Grimmjow allowed himself a small smirk at that.

"This brother he talked about, does he really exist? I mean, is the really his brother?" Szayel twirled a pink lock of hair absently between his fingers.

"See for yourself." Grimmjow pressed a button on his control and an mug shot of the homicidal maniac that had escaped with Ichigo popped up, next to Ichigo's own fresh mug shot. The two almost looked exactly the same. The same face shape, same smirk even. The only difference were the colors. Where Ichigo was tan, his brother, 'Shirosaki Tensho' as his name read on the file, was completely white. White hair, alabaster skin. And where Ichigo's eyes were warm brown, Shirosaki's eyes were the unnerving gold of a cat with black sclera.

"Fraternal twins?" asked Starrk.

"Probably. Though the similarly is almost too uncanny to be anything but identical…." offered Szayel.

"Shirosaki Tensho, imprisoned for arson, burglary, armed assault, selling of illegal weapons, and the murder of Luppi Antenor," recited Grimmjow from the computer file. "Plead insanity, and the trail was pending before his apparent brother, Ichigo Kurosaki, broke him out at 3: 33 this morning."

"Simple name twist, Shiro Kurosaki. Must be the family's back sheep, that Yuzu girl didn't look like she could hurt a fly." Szayel drawled.

"Yuzu Kurosaki holds a 9th dan black-belt." Ulquiorra pointed out quietly.

Grimmjow raised an eyebrow. That little thing in a wedding gown yesterday? Though he really shouldn't have been surprised. Yakuza families tended to be extremely rigorous in the training of the younger generations.

"In any event," Grimmjow continued. "The amount of info on Shiro Kurosaki known is a better start that what we had on Ichigo. The guy showed up on the radar about 2 years ago, with the burning of whorehouse in the red-light district of Kyoto, Japan. He popped up every couple of months for a while before he was arrested after the brutal murder of police officer Luppi Antenor. He was transferred to Ogichi Prison 3 months ago."

"He what's up with this kid Ichigo building all these prisons?" Nnoitra asked.

"Apparently it was part of the reason Ichigo graduated early."

Everyone looked to Ulquiorra, who was tapping away on his iPhone. "Ichigo designed 6 different high-level prisons scattered throughout America. His professors reportedly boasted that they were escape-proof. No comment from Ichigo, of course. As of this morning, all of them have been broken out of. But only once each. Naturally."

"Why couldn't we find this information before?" asked Starrk.

"It wasn't available before, I only found it just now." Ulquiorra glanced up at the blank looks from his teammates. "Don't look at me like that, I can't even find Ichigo's user-tag. This guy could erase his own mother's existence." Ulquiorra paused to think about what he just said. "Never mind, he already did."

Nnoitra leaned precariously back in his chair. "I can't decide if this guy's creeping me out or pissing me off."

"How do you think I feel? The guy chained me to table." Grimmjow switched the screen back to the prisoner ward clip.

"Kinky then?"

Grimmjow fixed Nnoitra with a cold glare. The lanky agent leered back at him.

"I don't fuck when I'm on duty."

"I don't know, you looked pretty 'hungry' when you pounced on the slut." Nniotra continued, flashing his piano-row teeth.

Grimmjow turned his attention back to the screen. "I just want to catch him."

"And nail him through a mattress."

"No." Grimmjow didn't look away from the screen image of Ichigo. "Just catch him."

The conference room was quiet for a moment.

That''s all Ichigo was to Grimmjow. A target. Nothing else, nothing personal. Just prey to be hunted down for the sake of hunting a worthy target down. Grimmjow didn't know what he would do after he found Ichigo. He was charged to turn him in. But the way this was unfolding already, Grimmjow really didn't know.

So he didn't think about it. Didn't think about anything but the chase. Things were simpler that way.

"So who's this person he's looking for?"

Grimmjow glanced at Starrk for a moment before he moved to tap a button on the computer.

The soft audio of Ichigo and Grimmjow's first exchange filtered through the room.

_"Excuse me, would you happen to know where Tensa-sama is?_"

Then he skipped through the next, much louder clip. _"Too bad. You don't even want to know who Tensa-sama is?"_

And finally to an edited-out bit from the recording camera. _"And he would kill me if I didn't take him along. Tensa means a lot to him as well."_

Grimmjow let his team mull over that for a moment.

"He dropped the honorific." Grimmjow glanced at Nnoitra.

"When did you learn japanese?" Szayel seemed very surprised at Nnoitra's apparent knowledge.

"Idiot, I _am_ Japanese." Nnoitra spat.

Grimmjow resisted the urge to roll his eyes at how closed-minded Szayel was with the people around him.

"He dropped it because he was being honest with Grimmjow." Starrk pulled a cigarette carton out of his dusty brown jacket, tapping one out and lighting it with his solid-silver lighter. The man was never without either his lighter or his gun. Though he had a bad habit of running out of cigarettes quickly, leaving him to often bum smokes off of Grimmjow.

"Yes." Ulquiorra was back to tapping away at his iPhone. "Ichigo Kurosaki never does things on accident." The hacker held up 3 long pale fingers, counting off the names. "Ichigo, Shiro, Tensa. 3. 3:33."

"Right," Grimmjow picked up on Ulquiorra's lead. "Ichigo loves symbolism. There's a reason for everything he does. He acts like a slut for a reason. We just don't know yet. He took a tracker, his brother, with him to find this Tensa, even though he could probably find them just fucking fine by himself. He put us, put me on his trail. Deliberately."

Grimmjow braced his hands against the table as he spoke glancing around the room. "All the crap Karin Kurosaki said. About my sister, about the cartels." Grimmjow skirted around the playful 'Sexta' tease. That was dangerous shit he wasn't about to talk about in a prison of all places. Hell no. "It was bait. Ichigo didn't wag his ass my way because I have a pretty face." Grimmjow smiled wanly at that last comment as he straightened up.

"So why blue roses?"

Grimmjow shrugged at Starrk's question. "Dunno. I want to say Tensa. Neither of the brothers have a trace of blue on them. Their sisters as well."

"What about the old man?" Nnoitra asked.

"Getsuga Zangetsu wore a pair of yellowed glasses 24-7. His eyes were brown." Ulquiorra supplied.

"Hm. I guess we'll find out. Before we get going, I guess you have to watch this." Grimmjow pressed the play button on the remote.

His team's attention went back to the screen. Having already seen it, Grimmjow watched the faces of his team instead. At point in the video where the twins reunited Nnoitra's eyebrows raised. Szayel's eye's narrowed as if he were trying to dissect the brothers with by just looking at them. Starrk inhaled a lungful of smoke slowly, frowning as he breathed out. Ulquiorra looked emotionless as usual.

When the clip ended, Grimmjow shut off the screen.

"Just proves that the kid's a slut."

"That's not the point, Nnoi." Szayel wrinkled his nose. "I estimate about 2/3 of the inside of your right lung is lightly coated with tar, Starrk."

"Almost halfway there." The handsome agent smiled lazily around his cigarette, now relaxed as the meeting was coming to an end.

Grimmjow almost smiled as well, but he was too distracted by unbidden flashes of Ichigo popping up in his head. Ichigo smiling warmly. Ichigo panting. Ichigo licking his lips, fluttering his eyelashes.

"Even without the black hair, the bitch's still not my type." Nnoitra had stood up and was stretching, back popping impossibly loud. "The albino neither."

"I'm starting to think you don't have a type, Nnoitra."

Nnoitra childishly stuck his pierced tongue out at Ulquiorra. "Oh I have a type, you're just sore it isn't scrawny little emo boy-girls like you."

"I'm not emo."

"The fuck you aren't."

Nnoitra had point. The hacker did seem very emo, always wearing black clothes like turtlenecks and skinny jeans no matter the season, the natural circles under his eyes didn't help either.

Ulquiorra stood up, making for the door before he continued, "Anyway, I would never spread my legs for a person who couldn't tell the difference between leet and code."

"So you'd fuck the berry-head?" Nnoitra followed the hacker out the door. Grimmjow didn't hear Ulquiorra's reply.

Szayel stood, brushing nonexistent dust off the shoulder of his suit. The man always wore a suit, the same way Nnoitra always wore old clothes. The lanky agent always complained he never got paid enough to buy new shit, though he got paid the same as everyone else on Grimmjow's team, including Grimmjow.

"So when are we leaving?" The doctor stopped, one hand on the frame of the door, waiting for the answer to his question.

"4 hours. That enough time to get your shit together, Doc?" Grimmjow powered down the computer as he didn't hear Starrk get up from his chair, but wasn't surprised when the man appeared at his elbow, smoking the last bit of his cancer-stick.

"Barely," Szayel scoffed before he left the room, door still open behind him.

Grimmjow straightened up, running a hand over his blue scruff. "I gotta go home and shave."

"Why the vampire get up, do you think?"

Grimmjow glanced at Starrk as the man lit up another cigarette. Starrk was a good tracker. The only reason he wasn't the team leader was that he thought that Grimmjow was better suited for it. The man claimed he was too lazy to be in charge of anything. Man couldn't even properly take care of a cat, damn thing ended up running away eventually. He was the reason Grimmjow worked with a team at all. He was the glue that kept the team together and on occasion from strangling each other. Sure, they got along well enough now, but when Grimmjow had first joined the force, he was two inches from ripping out Nnoitra's throat out almost everyday. Now Nnoitra crashed at Grimmjow's 4 days out of the week, and Grimmjow honestly didn't give a shit. Taking a leaf out of Starrk's book had saved Grimmjow for getting fired more than once.

"I don't know." Grimmjow thought about the very conscious disguise Ichigo had donned for his sister's wedding. The only reason he could think of was that Ichigo had wanted to grab his attention. Though the man could have done that wearing anything.

Grimmjow frowned as he followed Starrk out of the conference room. Maybe Ichigo Kurosaki _didn't_ have a reason for every single thing he did….

**A/N: Review if you can't wait to see Renji and Hisagi. And if you don't like either of them then y'all can go screw yourselves. Just kidding. I love you. Come back. Please.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hmm, tension. I love it.**

**Disclaimer: TiteKuboxBleach = the original pairing**

**Warnings: Cussing, scars, mentions of sexual professions, angst.**

"Okay, where the fuck are we?"

Grimmjow resisted banging his head against the dashboard in frustration.

"I told ya ta shut up, so fucking shut up already ya freakishly thin giant."

"No, ya told me to stop asking whether we were there yet."

Grimmjow gripped the wheel of the car so hard his knuckles turned white.

"I think it means the same thing in this situation, Nnoi."

Ulquiorra probably looked like a normal teenager to anyone else, seemly texting away on his cell phone. Grimmjow knew better. What Starrk was with a gun, Ulquiorra was with his cell phone. God-like. He felt sorry for Renji Abarai and Shuhei Hisagi's privacy. It was probably getting raped repeatedly by the mere movement of Ulquiorra's fingers.

"Well just so you get it through your thick skull, I'll say it now- Shut the fuck up, Nnoi."

Grimmjow ignored Nnoitra's crass reply, instead addressing his team hacker.

"So what do we have, Ulqui?"

Grimmjow switched lanes, glancing in the side-mirror to see Starrk make the same change in his identical inconspicuous car. Then he glanced in the rearview mirror to see a very. Very. Small smile on his hacker's face.

"Renji Abarai is a is a known Yakuza member. He has been residing in America for 9 years. Specializes in personal firearms, infantry support weapons, and vehicle weapons. He deals in specialized fortification weapons on the side, exclusively for Yakuza households of course. He has been admitted to various hospitals, with admission concentration in Japan, despite permanent residence in America. Usual song and dance."

Grimmjow nodded. Most American-residing Yakuza members traveled between American and Japan constantly. Besides the lineage requirement, members also had to serve for various amounts of time in the homeland. The higher ranked usually traveled back and forth constantly, stirring up trouble in Japan and returning to America scot-free.

Ulquiorra continued. "Statistically the preferred arms distributer for the American Yakuza branch. Current base of operations is Kensei's Auto Parts, managed by Shuhei Hisagi."

Grimmjow nodded. "Personal life?"

"I estimate Renji Abarai has three lovers, including but not limited to Byakuya Kuchiki, Shuhei Hisagi, and a very petty blond woman who manages his accounting." Ulquiorra paused for a second. "Strike that, she is a he and his name is Izuru Kira. 'She' models on the side. And strips. And…hm. Access denied…oh."

"Access denied?"

"Um. Not anymore."

Grimmjow glanced in the rearview mirror again. Was Ulquiorra blushing?

"Nevermind. Hisagi?"

"Confirmed Yakuza member. Mechanic. Drag racer. Formal japanese model. No recent pictures. Disappeared for 2 years before resurfacing in America. No hospital records. Living with Renji Abarai and Kensei Muguruma since he came to America 4 years ago. Still no recent pictures. Hm."

Grimmjow frowned. It usually took Ulquiorra less than a minute to find a picture of a person, no matter how well they were hidden.

"Connections?" Grimmjow asked, referring to possible hacker associations.

Ulquiorra was frowning as well. "I…" Suddenly Ulquiorra's eyes widened before narrowing harshly and his mouth opened to mutter, "Spala-te dint cu slobozii mei, curva…"

Both Grimmjow and Nnoitra looked over their shoulders in shock. Ulquiorra rarely spoke in his native Romanian, and even more rarely cursed in it. Especially a profane curse like that. And now the man seemed to be feverishly working at his iPhone, hunched over in concentration.

Grimmjow tossed a inquisitive look at Nnoitra who just shrugged his boney shoulders, just as perplexed. Grimmjow glanced in the rearview mirror and his own eyes widened as he watched Ulquiorra pull out his laptop. _His laptop_. Something must have seriously pissed him off if he was gonna work on his laptop. The whole team knew- if the things he could do with his iPhone were scary, the stuff he could pull off on his laptop were downright occult.

Deciding it was best not to disturb the hacker as he slaved over his laptop, Grimmjow returned his attention to the highway he was on. He began scoping the road signs for a motel option.

His team had left headquarters at 7 in the evening and they had been driving for 4 hours. Ulquiorra had suggested that the team not opt for air or rail travel considering Ichigo's virtual prowess. The man could easily deter their progress by canceling a flight or ticket. Similarly, the team abandoned CIA secured credit cards and were only carrying hard cash in case of financial sabotage.

Ulquiorra had preformed a small blanket search for Yakuza affiliated persons specializing in weapons and automotives, respectively. _"Weapons." "Cars._" The two hints Grimmjow had enticed out of Ichigo. Ichigo given Grimmjow a head start on his hunt and it almost made up for the half-day they were trailing behind the two fugitives. With this information Ulquiorra had found the two candidates who were closest to each other and to the Zangetsu/Kurosaki family. Renji Abarai and Shuhei Hisagi had been an immediate match and the hacker had plotted a course that totaled up to a 12 hour drive from headquarters to Kensei's Auto Parts.

Grimmjow reached up and hand to press the small speaker button that would connect him to Starrk's own earpiece in the other car.

"Hey Starrk, how's Pinky doing?"

There was a small pause before his fellow agent's voice came over. "Fell asleep 2 hours ago. Worried for my life as usual."

Grimmjow chuckled softly. Szayel had a bad habit of talking in his sleep whenever he rode in a car. The man seemed to go though surgeries and autopsies step by step in his dreams and the resulting requests for scalpels and incisions were the mildest of the many things Szayel asked for while sleeping.

"Ulquiorra's in hack-mode. Best turn in for the night, finish the 4 hours in the morning." Grimmjow listened to Ulquiorra never-faltering typing as he maneuvered his vehicle into a lane he could exit the freeway from.

"What happened?"

"He pulled out his laptop."

"…Holy shit. Another hacker?"

"Probably." Grimmjow had seen Ulquiorra work like this before, when attacking another hack's defensives, or when he was being attacked himself. It usually lasted for a couple of hours. Maybe a day or two of Ulquiorra shutting himself up in his apartment, ignoring any other distractions and disregarding personal hygiene and health. One of them, usually health-freak Szayel, had to break into the hacker's apartment to check if the man was still alive. After making sure Ulquiorra had eaten something they usually left. There was really no dealing with him when he was in hacker-mode.

"Do you think it's Ichigo?"

Grimmjow thought for a moment. "Dunno, might be."

"It's not Ichigo, but it's someone nearly as good as him."

Grimmjow blinked at the dual voice of the real Ulquiorra and the earpiece Ulquiorra.

"Is it someone as good as you?" Grimmjow asked the surprisingly responsive Ulquiorra as he turned off on the exit he had chosen.

"…yes. If it is who I think it is."

"And who do you think it is?"

"I don't know what their real name is."

"But you've seen their work before?" Grimmjow heard Starrk ask.

"…I believe so."

"The fuck does that mean?" Nnoitra asked.

"It means. It's. I...two seconds."

Two seconds turned out to be more like 30 minutes. Grimmjow had found a motel and they had checked into a smoking room on the second floor. Ulquiorra was still in the backseat of the car, still frantically typing away at his laptop after they had moved all their crap into the room. It was Nnoitra who finally got fed up and bodily picked up the hacker, computer and all, throwing the man over his shoulder to scale the stairs of the motel. And still Ulquiorra didn't stop, holding the laptop awkwardly against Nnoitra's back with his arm until he was unceremoniously dumped on the bed next to the groggy Szayel.

Bed arrangements were always as such. Two bed motel room, Ulquiorra with Szayel and Grimmjow with Starrk. Nnoitra slept on the floor, or the pullout couch if there as one. The lanky agent really needed all the space he could get, Grimmjow had learned the hard way. The first time the team had gone on an extended mission, the tracker had received an elbow to the face and had half strangled his own team member before Starrk had gotten him off Nnoitra. They system they currently used had been quickly established. Szayel sometimes got cuddly, mid-REM cycle and surprisingly so did Ulquiorra. Starrk barely moved at all when he slept, to the point when he sometimes seemed dead. This was perfect for the light-sleeping Grimmjow. If anyone touched him while he was sleeping Grimmjow's body would automatically attack. It didn't help that he slept with his gun either in his hand or under his pillow. Bad habits died hard.

"Ulqui, come to bed."

Though Szayel was much less annoying when he was tired, he was ignored by his hacker bedmate. Sighing, the now shirtless and pj-bottomed Szayel merely toppled into the covers, one arm somehow wrapped around Ulquiorra's waist. Judging from his breathing the doctor was asleep before his body hit the bed.

Grimmjow ducked into the bathroom to change his clothes. He never changed in front of the others. For good reason. The bathroom was small, dingy like the rest of the motel, but Grimmjow and his team had stayed in worse.

After he had pulled his long-sleeved shirt over his head, the blue-haired agent glanced in the mirror. Naturally tan skin broken by silvery-white scars stared back at him. Feeling slightly neurotic, he traced the bumps of scar tissue from a bullet wound on his shoulder. His fingers ghosted down his arm to the crooked band of silvery skin that encircled his upper left bicep. He closed his eyes, thinking. Ichigo had grabbed his left arm when they had met yesterday. Had it been just yesterday?

Grimmjow dropped his hand down to the center of his abdomen. Over the perfectly sculpted six pack, Grimmjow felt the circular outline of the broken bottle wound. Something he had received before he had even hit puberty. A sick reminder of the situation that had triggered everything that had happened in his life.

Suddenly irritated, Grimmjow grabbed his chosen shirt, ready to yank it on when the mangled skin on his back flashed at him in the mirror. Grimmjow paused, shirt over his arms, jaw tightened. After a moment, he pulled the shirt over his head and torso roughly. This was why he didn't have large mirrors in his apartment. His body reminded him of all the things he fucking hated.

After yanking on a pair of sweats, Grimmjow opened the door of the bathroom, founding himself moving aside for Ulquiorra. Grimmjow frowned as he watched the hacker step into the small shower fully clothed and heard a splutter before he heard the loud spray of water against a body.

"Close the door please."

Confused, Grimmjow glanced into the motel room. Starrk and Nnoitra looked just as bewildered as he felt, Starrk sitting shirtless on the edge of one bed and Nnoitra standing in a wifebeater and sweats, paused in tying up his long mop of hair. Szayel was still asleep, now twisted impossibly in the covers of his shared bed.

Closing the door to the bathroom softly, Grimmjow gave it a hard look before he crossed his arms over his chest.

"What happened?"

Starrk removed his gun form the holster he had been wearing it in all day and set it on the bedside table. "No idea," the wavy-haired agent murmured, shaking his head. "Kid just stopped typing, slammed damn thing closed, and high-tailed it to the bathroom."

Every awake person in the room glanced warily at the laptop sitting innocently on the edge of Szayel's bed. Ulquiorra was rarely emotional, despite looking like a depressed goth-emo hybrid. Cussing wasn't the man's style, neither was storming out of a room and taking a shower with all his clothes on.

Grimmjow made his way to his side of the shared bed, grabbing the holster he had removed before heading to the bathroom, removing the gun, checking the magazine and safety before setting it down on the bed for when he would go to sleep later.

"Anyone else get the feeling that this job ain't right?" Grimmjow didn't look at Nnoitra as the leggy man flopped down carelessly on the small couch crammed between the bathroom and the far bed. Starrk and Grimmjow said nothing, though it didn't seem important as Nnoitra's breathing evened out.

Grimmjow and Starrk sat on their respective sides of the shared bed, not saying anything as the sound of the shower continued. And continued. And continued.

"First watch?" Starrk asked quietly.

"I'll take it." Grimmjow stood up, grabbing his gun and making for the window near the door of the room.

"Wake me up in 2 hours." Grimmjow glanced to see Starrk stretch out on his belly. The man slept shirtless and with no covers. The agent's inked back relaxed as he began to breath deeply. The tattooed scrawl of elaborate letterings became meaningless shapes as Grimmjow flicked off the room's lights, though Grimmjow already knew what it spelled. 'Lilynette'. Grimmjow had never asked who Lilynette was. He didn't plan to.

Things between his teammates were either professional or casual. Never personal.

That was why no one ever asked why Szayel downed about 5 different pills after every meal or why Nnoitra never removed the bandana covering his left eye. It was why Grimmjow didn't knock on the door to check if Ulquiorra was okay. Whatever the hacker was doing was his own business. As long it didn't deter the mission, Grimmjow had no reason to interrupt Ulquiorra.

Grimmjow gazed out at the nearly empty lot of the motel. The sound of the shower continued.

**(I am a ninja page break. HAI-YAH!)**

Grimmjow woke up to the smell of convenience store coffee.

He reached out to grab the heated cup from Starrk's fingers as his fellow agent dangled it in front of his face.

"You're welcome. Now get your ass up."

Grimmjow grunted as he threw the covers off and swung his legs over the edge of the motel bed. He burned his tongue on the scalding hot beverage but he really didn't give a fuck as he took a large eye-opening gulp. In his peripherals, he noticed an already dressed Nnoitra sitting sprawled on the floor next to the couch. The man was chugging his way through what looked like his third cup of coffee.

"Mornin' sunshine." Grimmjow half-heartedly taunted.

"Fuck you, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow chuckled softly. If anything, Nnoitra was definitely not a morning person. Especially after only 6 hours of sleep. Long mission mornings usually included a serious dose of PMSing Nnoitra and lots of coffee in hopes of remedying the situation.

The blue-haired agent's mood shriveled up as he glanced around and noted the absence of one of his team members. Rising from his bed, Grimmjow took another swing of hot coffee as he made his way to the door way, catching Starrk as the man returned from loading overnight bags into their cars.

"He still not out yet?" the blue-haired agent asked quietly, nodding to the bathroom.

"No, but Szayel said the shower stopped an hour ago."

"Well at least we know he was alive an hour ago," Grimmjow reasoned frowning.

"Want me to check?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "I'll do it. Finish loading up."

"Sure, boss." Starrk said, smiling lazy.

Grimmjow playfully hit Starrk's shoulder at the man's tease. No one was really boss in their team.

The blue-haired agent chugged the rest of his coffee before going to steal one of Nnoitra's remaining cups. Grimmjow ignored Nnoitra's middle finger salute as he lightly rapped on the bathroom door.

There was no responsive action for a moment. Then the door opened a fraction of an inch. Grimmjow could only see a sliver of pale arm braced against the wall. The blue-haired agent tried to figure out why this struck him as odd before he realized he had never seen the skin of Ulquiorra's arm before. The man always wore long sleeves, much like himself.

"Yo." Grimmjow braced an arm against the frame of the door. He was sure the strong aroma of coffee easily reached the hacker through the gap in the door.

"…What time is it?"

Grimmjow frowned. Ulquiorra always knew the time. Then it hit him. The man didn't have his iPhone on him. Or his laptop. Or any electronic device. Grimmjow glanced that the bed Szayel had slept in. The laptop was still resting ominously the edge.

Grimmjow glanced at the bedside alarm clock. "6:14."

There was a noncommittal grunt on the other side of the door. From the sound Grimmjow guessed Ulquiorra was pressing his forehead to the barrier.

"That coffee?" Ulquiorra's voice was even softer than usual.

"Yeah, want some?"

There was a pause. Then a very pale hand edged out between the gap. Grimmjow placed the cup in it. The hand retreated quickly, but not before Grimmjow noticed silvery traces of scars encircling Ulquiorra's wrist. All the way around.

"Can you hand me my shit?" Came a soft murmur. "Not my phone. My bag."

Grimmjow's frown returned. Ulquiorra didn't want his phone? The fuck had the man found last night that he didn't want to even handle his electronics?

"Sure, one sec."

Grimmjow went to grab Ulquiorra's untouched duffel bag off the floor.

"Here."

The door had to open wider to fit the duffel bag through and Grimmjow saw dark sodden clothes hanging over the edge of the tub, dripping water onto the tile. Grimmjow caught a hint of Ulquiorra's dark, damp hair, a towel obscuring the hacker's face. The arm that snaked out to pull the duffel bag in was pale and spotted with small scars. Grimmjow only got a quick look before the door was almost completely closed again. There was a quiet 'thanks' before the door was fully shut again.

Grimmjow looked at the other occupants of the room, all watching warily.

The blue-haired agent glanced back at the closed bathroom door, a sense of foreboding coming over him.

Something was up, and he had a feeling they would be finding out what exactly this something was. Very soon.

A/N: Oh, Ulquiorra. My dirty little angsty not-so-secret. Review if you feel the same.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Superuberduper long chapter. You're welcome.**

**Diclaimer: Own. Nothing.**

**Warnings: Cusscusscussing, mentions of fucking, scars, guns, knives, angst.**

"Turn left."

Grimmjow turned the steering wheel in accordance to Ulquiorra's directions. They had arrived in the small town that had become their destination.

Grimmjow had been slightly worried Ulquiorra wouldn't pick up his phone after he had come out of the bathroom, dressed in his usual black high-necked jacket and dark pants. The hacker had looked at his laptop for a moment, completely devoid of emotion. After a tense moment the hacker had snatched his electronics up and swept out of the room, leaving his perplexed teammates to hurry after him.

During the 6 hours of the final leg of the drive Ulquiorra had slept, his head in Szayel's lap. This, of course, kept Szayel quiet. Which Grimmjow was extremely grateful for. The car seating rotated irregularly for the team, based on whomever could tolerate whom the most at a given time. Starrk was usually the only person who could tolerate Nnoitra for extended hours in the morning, so they rode together in one car while Grimmjow drove with Szayel and Ulquiorra in the other. The hacker and the doctor got along well enough, Ulquiorra was probably the only person Szayel wouldn't intellectually chew out at the drop of a hat. Perhaps because the doctor recognized Ulquiorra as a fellow intellect. Or maybe he was just nice to cuddle with.

When the team had stopped at a burger joint for lunch Grimmjow had opened the door to the backseat and handed the now awake Ulquiorra his usual cheeseburger with extra cheese. Szayel had gotten off to figure out what was the most healthy possible choice of meal considering the location, as he usually did. It was just-as-usually a hopeless cause but the man was a health-freak of extreme proportions.

Grimmjow watched as Ulquiorra had nibbled at his burger, more slowly than his usual moderate pace.

"So this hack." Grimmjow prompted as he leaned against the open door. The blue-haired agent didn't want to pressure Ulquiorra, in case he should suddenly become temperamental on him. But if the mysterious hacker was going to be a problem, he wanted to know about it.

"I beat him."

Grimmjow scowled. "Run that by me again?"

"I got past his defensives. He's more of an offensive hacker."

Ulquiorra played with the paper wrapping of his burger as he spoke, not looking Grimmjow in the eye.

But that didn't make any sense. Why was Ulquiorra acting so mercurial if he had won against this hacker? What the hell was going on? Ulquiorra might have not been a person who easily portrayed emotions but Grimmjow knew that the man liked to win. A lot.

Grimmjow said nothing for a moment, staring at his knuckles against the black of the car.

"So what did you find?" the agent finally managed. If Ulquiorra had overcome the hack then he must have found the data he had been searching for. A picture of the Hisagi guy, from what he could remember.

Grimmjow glanced down at Ulquiorra to be fixed with the vaguest look he had ever seen. Ulquiorra didn't seem to be looking at him, didn't seem to be focusing on him at all, despite the fact that the hacker was staring directly into his eyes. Ulquiorra's usually luminous green eyes were glazed over in the most upsetting way.

"…Tell you later."

And that had been that. Now Ulquiorra was tapping away on his iPhone, normal as could be, directing them to what Grimmjow had a feeling was going to be their first 'checkpoint' as he referred to them. The first lead lead to the first checkpoint and the second lead lead to the second checkpoint, and so on. This was Ichigo Kurosaki's first checkpoint.

After one more turn off of a dusty road, Grimmjow stopped his car in front of a gated building. The agent scanned the area. It was actually a ways away from the small town they had navigated through. The large warehouse building was secluded and completely fenced and walled around. A wooden, hand-painted sign hung on the wired gate and read 'Kensei's Auto Parts' in flowing, friendly red letters. The gates had no locks on them, but were swung closed with a loose chain holding them close together.

Grimmjow thought for a moment before he turned the key in its ignition, turning the stalling car off. Starrk brought his car up next to theirs and did the same.

No one got out of the cars.

Grimmjow did another once-over. The walls obstructed most of the warehouse, it was hard to tell where one could be hit from. He could just as well drive through the gate, but he didn't want to anger the people they wanted to question with unneeded racket.

Grimmjow lifted a hand to his earbud. "Starrk, cover."

"Got it," came the reply as Grimmjow opened his diver's side door...slowly. He heard the identical click of Starrk's door from the other side of the man's car.

Grimmjow took a step out, hand still on the door frame, shoes crunching in the dry dirt under his feet. He heard the slam of Starrk's door and he reached out his hand to initiate the same action.

Then he dropped.

Drew his gun.

And shot around his now windowless car door.

Glass showered briefly over his head and the agent continued firing shot after shot in the direction from which the first bullets had come from, a broken window near the roof of the warehouse. The sound of metal being penetrated echoed in his ears as a round of gun-machine shots rang over the din of what was now full-blown gunfight. A shot sounded next to his ear and Grimmjow didn't have to turn around to know it was Ulquiorra that had rolled out of the backseat and was firing from behind his own door. In his peripherals he could see Nnoitra steadying his gun on the edge of the second car's roof and firing ceaseless rounds, while pulling out a second weapon out of the back of his waist-band to join the first. He heard shots to his right from the same position Szayel was taking on the otherside of their car. He knew Starrk was crouched so he had the cover of the wall and was firing over it.

Suddenly Grimmjow felt the wind of a bullet graze his left cheek, cutting it open slightly. Immediately following it came two more bullets, each scratching a fraction of an inch lower than the one that preceded it. Grimmjow's eyes narrowed and he calculated his next three shots precisely.

And as suddenly as the fighting had broken out, it stopped.

Grimmjow froze, gun in hand, coiled like a spring. His senses screamed at him that it wasn't over, not to move, to wait. And he did.

Suddenly 4 shadows flickered in the high sun of the early afternoon and Grimmjow's eyes watched as 4 grenades sailed up in the sky, hung in the air for a moment, then began their swift descent…toward them.

Grimmjow's gun moved on it's own accord as he lifted it to take aim, firing off 2 shots as he heard almost identical shots ring out from Starrk's side of his car.

Shattered glass went unheard as the force of 4 grenades exploding in midair created an astounding pressure, breaking all the windows of the team's cars and leaving a ringing in Grimmjow's ears that blocked out all other sounds. Grimmjow closed his eyes, opening and closing his jaw in pain as he crouched behind his car door.

God, Grimmjow hated grenades. So much.

When the raw ringing in his ears had died down to nothing Grimmjow holstered his gun and hauled himself up via car frame. Opening his eyes, he surveyed the damage.

Both cars were completely shot up, glass layering the ground around them as well as the front seats. His team was beginning to recover from the shock, Starrk was already up, leaning against the nearby wall. No one seemed to be wounded, just slightly dazed.

Shaking his head, Grimmjow glanced up at the broken window he had been aiming at. It was empty.

Bright red in the corner of Grimmjow's eye caught the agent's attention as he registered a very tall, very muscular, very tattooed man approaching them from the other side of the metal gates. Perfect white teeth flashed devilishly as the man stopped at the gate, fingers clawing though twisted wire. The man was ridiculously handsome, abs and biceps flexed as they gripped the fence. The man was shirtless and one could clearly see the jagged trails of black ink splaying over his chest and winding up his neck. A sooty bandana was tied across the man's forehead and shockingly red hair was weaved in a loose french braid. He wore nothing else but a pair of gym shorts and a lecherous smirk.

The man's grinning mouth moved and Grimmjow could make out through the partial deafness produced by the grenades, "Congrats, fuckers. Ya'll passed the test."

Grimmjow frowned. Test?

The blue-haired agent squinted at the man and finally he could discern 3 distinctive red marks on the side of his face. Bullet grazes. Right where Grimmjow had meant them to be. This was the man who had shot at them. This was Renji Abarai.

Abarai shook the gate playfully, jarring the now bullet-holed sign. The next words completely confused the fuck out of Grimmjow.

"Come in and I'll fix you guys up with the weapons you were born for."

Grimmjow stood, shaking his head of slight deafness. This guy, who had just attacked them, who could have killed them if one of his bullets had hit either of the car engines just right, was going to fix them up with weapons? "The fuck would we do that for?"

Abarai winked flirtatiously. "Because they're already paid for. Now," The redhead flung both gates open effortlessly, his abdominals flexing impressively. "Are you gonna keep using those substandard, CIA-issued excuses for guns? Or are you gonna fucking come in already?"

With another wink the redhead thrust his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts and turned on his heel to walk back towards the warehouse. Grimmjow exchanged a glance with the now standing Starrk. The older agent shrugged. Grimmjow's mouth half-twisted into a frown but he wiped the blood dripping from his bullet grazes and followed the weapons distributer.

They had come to this place for a reason after all. They weren't about to leave just cuz they got a little shot at.

The inside the warehouse was an office that had been modified to become very comfortable living quarters. There was a sofa, easy chairs, Grimmjow could see through a door to a kitchen, and he assumed the stairs lead to a bedroom on the second floor.

And there were guns everywhere.

Magazines of all types littered the sofa and coffee table, several dozen boxes of hand-helds and automatics were heaped in a corner, and there was a machine gun propped up against one of the easy chairs. Grimmjow's team filed in behind him as the blue-haired agent watched Abarai light a cigarette and flop down on the couch as if he hadn't just tried to blow them up, legs spread wide open and arms draped carelessly over the cushions.

The red-haired weapons expert flicked ashes from his cancer stick and nodded at Starrk. "You and smurfy over here are the best shots so you two are up first. Lemme see your hands cowboy."

Grimmjow detected the tiniest hint of a japanese accent in the Yakuza's english as the shirtless man spoke. It wasn't distinct and he figured the man could pass as an American if he wanted, he didn't look very Japanese to begin with, what with that flaming red hair and sideburns.

"You can tell what kind of gun is perfect for a person just by looking at their hands?" Grimmjow heard Starrk ask, not moving from his place beside Grimmjow.

"Hey at least I'm not as bad as Ichigo or Kensei. Those faggots could tell you what kind of gun you need by how you tie your fucking shoelaces." The red head curled a finger towards himself. "Come on, I'm not gonna bite you." Devilish smile. "Unless you're into that."

Grimmjow's interest spiked at the mention of Ichigo. "You said this was already paid for."

Abarai took a long pull from his cigarette then took it between his fingers and relaxed even more into the couch. His smile turned even more smug. "Yeah, courtesy of Ichigo Kurosaki."

"How do you know Kurosaki?" Starrk asked, knowing what Grimmjow wanted to ask.

Another pull. The cigarette was already half gone. "If you let me look at your hands maybe I'll tell you, doll."

Grimmjow could practically hear Starrk's eyebrow raise. Nonetheless, the older agent moved, step by measured step, to stand in front of the grinning weapons dealer. Abarai took the offered hands into his own and began meticulously examining them as he spoke.

"I met Ichigo when I was, what, 16? That would have make him 15. Fucking cocky kid. Best goddamn shot I'd ever seen, 'sides Kensei, and Jesus how he fucking knew it." The redhead's voice suddenly got softer. "Jesus, your hands are fucking perfect…"

Grimmjow knew Starrk wouldn't react to that comment on the outside but the agent didn't say anything so he could imagine the man was slightly surprised, but was begin his usual cool self. It was hard to break that suavely protective layer.

Abarai stood up suddenly, pulling Starrk by his hands to the box of guns in the corner of the room. Still holding onto one of the agent's hands the redhead began rummaging through the boxes with one hand, still talking.

"You're using the best gun the stupid-ass CIA had to offer, but that ain't good enough for these hands, beautiful. You need…one…of…Ah hah!" The redhead pulled out a black box with a beautiful silver design craved into the cover. "You need this."

Abarai let Starrk's captive hand go so he could grasp the box with both hands. Grimmjow watched he older agent slowly lifted the lid to reveal a solid looking gun with shining, sliver plated sides. Long fingers brushed against the soft velvet of the case as Starrk took hold of the weapon. Silver sides flashed in the light of the room as Abarai continued talking.

"That's _Rosu Robosu_. Might be something different in another language but I found that baby on the brink of non-fucking-repair. Me and Kensei fixed her up to her formal glory and I estimate her to cost about, _ano_… 25 grand, American dollars?" Renji shrugged. "Rumor's she's got a sister floating around in Japan, identical. Handmade, never manufactured. Shoots like a fucking dream."

"If it costs so much, why are you giving me?" Starrk didn't look up from the mesmerizing weapon.

Abarai shrugged again, grinning as he walked back to sofa. "Kansei'd be pissed if I didn't pull it into prefect hands." Suddenly dead-serious brown eyes fixed Starrk. "And you have the most prefect hands I have ever seen."

There was quiet in the room for a moment before Abarai smiled impishly.

"Plus Ichigo's one hell of a lay. Okay Smurfy, you're up next."

Grimmjow resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he stepped forward to offer his hands. He felt a strange twitch in his chest when Abarai had mentioned Ichigo. Didn't matter though, it was just a good platform to find out some info. "So Kurosaki was here last night," the agent prompted.

That was really why they were here, to figure out Ichigo and Shiro's next move. That was all.

Renji's leer was back. "Oh yes, Ichigo was here. Shiro too, I guess. You can ask Shu-chan about that when he hauls his ass out of bed. If he _can_ haul his ass out of bed." Renji examined Grimmjow's hands almost as quickly as he had Starrk's before he was up and rummaging though the boxes again.

"What was I saying? Oh yeah, Ichigo was almost the best fucking shot I've ever seen. Kid swore he never picked up a gun before the Old Man sent him to Kensei. 3 months in he was shooting of the tips of my hair just to piss me off. Fucking natural. At everything-not just guns, mind you. Little bastard had spent a year with old Shiba before he was sent to Kensei. And had come out alive. Little fuck thought he was on top of the world…Ah- Here."

Abarai handed Grimmjow a very heavy-duty hand-held. It weighed a bit, but it felt just right in Grimmjow's hand. Like it had been custom made for his grip.

"Old reliable. You're one hell of a shot," Abarai's hand went up to scratch at his jaw, carefully avoiding the bullet grazes on his cheek. "But like that fuck, Shiro, you use a gun to get results. And this baby will get you the best results." Abarai flicked his gaze over to Grimmjow's companions. "S' wrong with you, pinkie?"

Grimmjow glanced over his shoulder though he already knew what he would see.

The doctor was clinging to the back of the room, unconsciously edging for the door. His eye twitched slightly after his initial small jump at the surprise of Abarai addressing him.

Szayel had a problem with meeting new people. Mostly initially large, domineering men with gruff voices. Like Abarai. Starrk, Grimmjow, and even partially Nnoitra had received this treatment when the group had first gotten together. After a few months and conscious efforts to make as few non-threatening movements as was possible, considering their job, Szayel had relaxed and become his current, slightly-abnoxious self.

The only person who had not received the rehab-patient treatment had been Ulquiorra. Grimmjow could only assume that was because the hacker was like Szayel in nature and build. Feminine and initially submissive, despite the great power each wielded. Szayel grew on Ulquiorra swiftly in the team's first months, and into their current brother (or sister) -like relationship.

Next to Szayel, Ulquiorra looked distracted, but was still paying enough attention to give his friend a nudge, prompting him to react.

Szayel's honey-tinted eyes glanced at the hacker before turning to narrow at Abarai. "Medication."

Grimmjow had to admit, Szayel wasn't as bad as he had been 2 years ago, if he could tell anything from the sardonic tone the doctor had managed to infuse that singular word with.

It was Abarai's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I'll just assume I don't want to know. Just get you're ass over here to I can look at your hands, buttercup."

Grimmjow tossed his old gun on the sofa, replacing it with his newly commandeered one as Starrk had. "Who's Shiba?"

He watched as Szayel came forward gingerly, keeping his head down submissively as Abarai roughly grabbed the doctor's slim hands in his calloused ones.

"If I know anything about Ichigo, you'll never fucking find out."

Abarai glanced up at Grimmjow, meeting with the agent's icy blue eyes. In the look Grimmjow saw recognition, but not recognition of him. After the recognition there was keen reasoning.

"Or maybe you will…"

Grimmjow kept his face perfectly blank as Abarai continued to look at him with his shrewd gazed for a moment before the weapons dealer glanced back down at the almost quivering Szayel. "S' wrong princess? Or should I say doctor? Mighty pretty surgeon's hands you got here, beautiful."

Szayel muttered a quiet curse and Abarai boomed a raucous laugh, the calculating look in his eye gone-replaced with impish mirth. Grimmjow pondered that look he had received. As far as he knew, he had never seen this Renji Abarai in his life. But if he hadn't, where had that spark of recognition come from?…

The blue-haired agent watched as Abarai let go of Szayel's hands and went to root around in the boxes of arms as he had for Grimmjow and Starrk. The shirtless man came up with a very sleek looking weapon and handed it to Szayel, grip first.

"This one's extremely sensitive, but I think you can handle her, doctor. Just be sure you know what you want to hit before your finger even touches the trigger. Though I assume you're good at making split-second decisions already."

Grimmjow knew that by looking down, Szayel wouldn't see the wink that Abarai had tacked on at the end but the doctor blushed nonetheless as he made his way back to his spot as far away from the weapons dealer as possible.

"You." Abarai beckoned to Ulquiorra with a quick hand gesture. "Yer next."

Ulquiorra moved quickly and emotionlessly, the distracted look in his eye still there as he offered his hands to the weapons dealer. Blank green eyes moved around the room, often landing on the staircase before wandering off again.

"Hm." Grimmjow dropped his gaze to the frowning Abarai. The weapons dealer twisted the hacker's hands over as if there was a secret written somewhere between in the pale creases.

"Something wrong, Abarai-san?"

Ulquiorra was looking not-so-expectantly down at the sitting redhead as he spoke, tone somehow even blander and more aloof than usual.

Abarai held a finger up to quiet the hacker before he stood up himself.

"One moment." Grimmjow lost sight of the weapons dealer as he disappeared into the kitchen. The agent glanced at Ulquiorra. The hacker looked bored and slightly weary as his green eye lit on the stairs once again before the moved to gaze listlessly around the apartment.

Grimmjow left off in his puzzling over the hacker's slightly off-kilter demeanor when Abarai reentered the room with a kitchen knife in his hands. The weapons dealer offered the culinary tool to the hacker, handle first.

Eyebrow raised a fraction of a fraction of an inch, Grimmjow watched as Ulquiorra took the knife, holding it loosely in his fingers.

"Grip it," Abarai instructed the hacker. "As if it were a weapon."

Ulquiorra did as the redhead requested, a slightly dubious look in his eye. "I hardly think a kitchen knife is going to help my protect myself, Abarai-san."

Calculating brown eyes regarded the hacker's pale hands, moving his own large tan hand to move Ulquiorra's arm so the knife was held away from his body, as if he was going to use it to slash at someone. "Your hands aren't compatible with guns. You use them, and you're a fair shot but your fit is a blade."

Grimmjow watched a small flash of surprise flicker of Ulquiorra's face before it reverted to its usual aloof mask.

"You don't use knives often." Abarai continued as he tilled the kitchen knife in Ulquiorra's grasp, watching the movement of the muscles under the skin of the hacker's hand. "Not in a long time, that's for sure. But you've definitely killed someone with a knife before."

The aloof mask stayed in place, though it looked like it might crack. Ulquiorra's shoulders tensed for a fraction of a second at Abarai's words and Grimmjow frowned. The agent had seen Ulquiorra execute a target before without batting an eyelash. It was part of the job description. So why was the hacker getting riled up? True, Grimmjow had never seen Ulquiorra wield a knife before, but…hm. Maybe it did matter.

"Is that so?" Ulquiorra's voice was smooth and calm, the tension in his shoulders gone as he regarded the weapons dealer with an empty gaze.

"Yeah," Abarai nodded before plucking the knife out of Ulquiorra's hands and tossing it onto the coffee table. "Okay, blades aren't my forte," The redheaded man stepped onto of the couch to slide a long arm behind the piece of furniture, next to the wall. "You'd have to visit a Kuchiki for a prefect match. But I do have something that might fit you. Ah, got it."

Abarai extracted a long carton from the gap between the couch and the wall and tossed it to Ulquiorra. The hacker caught it deftly, hesitating the smallest bit before sliding the box cover off.

Nestled in the styrofoam of the box was a brilliantly polished jade butterfly knife. Long pale fingers reached into the case and pulled the closed blade out. Grimmjow watched as identically jade eyes roamed over the weapon. Suddenly the hacker's wrist flicked impossibly fast and a large serrated blade flourished out.

A muscle in Ulquiorra's jaw twitched.

Just as suddenly the blade was shut again and was nestled back in its closed case as the hacker bowed slightly to the weapons dealer.

"Arigatou gozaimasu, Abarai-san." Odd. Grimmjow hadn't been aware that Ulquiorra could speak japanese. Nearly prefect japanese. There was slight european accent in the simple thank you.

"Hold that thought, I can't fucking stand the idea of someone leaving my shop without a gun so here. Hurts my fucking soul." Abarai snatched a gun off the edge of sofa armrest and tossed it to Ulquiorra. The hacker caught the weapon in the hand that did not carry his new knife.

"Standard-standard. Good gun, and a fuck of a lot better than the piece you had coming in here."

Ulquiorra nodded his thanks as he backed away from the weapons dealer and Grimmjow wondered about that tense look Ulquiorra had given the offered butterfly knife. If the damn thing put him on edge, why had he taken it?

"Okay scarecrow, you're up."

"Call me scarecrow again and I'll cut yer balls of, ya fucking leprechaun."

Grimmjow raised a hand to rub eyes. Fucking Nnoitra. Crazy fuck didn't know how to not slap a gift horse in the fucking mouth. The agent opened his mouth to tell Nnoitra to shut the hell up and just let the man look at his hands before he was stopped at the sound of soft steps on the stairs.

"Do you mind not calling my lover a leprechaun? He's gonna feel the need to compensate for that comment in bed and I don't think I can take anymore fucking for at least the next 48 hours."

All eyes, saving Abarai's, looked up at the young man wrapped in sheets at the top of the stairs. Smiling grey eyes from under dark spiky bangs blinked down at them. That was the only way Grimmjow could tell the man was smiling because the complete bottom half of his face was covered by a black bandana. The man didn't look like he was wearing anything else but the thin bedsheet draped around his body as he made his way down the stairs.

_'Must be Hisagi_,' thought Grimmjow as he watched the former model descend. The blue-haired agent could see the sculpted pecs and toned biceps of the man's upper body as well as the strangely marred skin around the bases of the man's neck and around the wrist of the hand that was holding the sheet to his body. Grimmjow's keen eyes could pick out small, red love-marks spotted around the man's collar bone.

"Please, Shu-chan. You're the god-damn definition of a masochistic slut. I could fuck you right now and you'd fucking love it." Grimmjow looked at the relaxing Abarai as the man leaned back into the sofa, eyes closed and hands pillowed behind his head.

'Shu-chan' rolled his eyes as he reached the bottom of the steps, "If I'm a slut, what does that make you? Ichigo was bouncing on he same dick Kira and I have." There was no heat in the handsome man's voice as he brushed dark strands away from his long eyelashes. "And Ichigo's not exactly a submissive in bed,_ 'Renji-kun'_."

One lazy brown eye opened at the playful tease, "So did you enjoy getting pounded though the mattress my that albino dickwad? Oh wait, I already know. Heard you screaming through the walls all fucking night." A sly smirk spread over the weapon dealer's face. "Good thing Kensei's in Japan, your ass'd be out on the street for making so much fucking noise."

Hisagi leaned over to hover over the redhead's smirking face. "You like it. S' not like you weren't getting some either."

"Yeah, but I wasn't screaming like a bitch."

"Nah, you save that for when Kuchiki-san visits."

There was a pause.

"…Touche."

"I win, slut. So are these the visitors Ichi-san mentioned?"

Hisagi straightened as he spoke, bandana shifting to suggest he was smiling as he turned to survey Grimmjow's team. Suddenly the the bandana shifted again and grey eyes widened as Hisagi's gaze froze. Grimmjow turned to see that the man was staring at Ulquiorra. And Ulquiorra was staring just as intensely back.

Hisagi took a step towards Grimmjow's hacker. "…Four? Is that you?"

Four? Grimmjow's head snapped back to Ulquiorra, almost stunned at the smallest hint of a smile. An extremely dead smile. A world-weary and pained smile.

"I don't know, is it me?"

Grimmjow frowned as he glanced back at Hisagi. Why had he called Ulquiorra four? His frown deepened as Hisagi reached a hand up to his face bandana, hooking a finger over the edge and pausing before he pulled the concealing cloth down.

Tattooed across the left side of the man's face were the japanese characters for '_boku no me_'- '_my eyes_' in japanese. Grey eyes continued to look at Ulquiorra and Gimmjow looked back to his hacker.

The smile was gone and Ulquiorra's head was slightly bowed. The hacker did nothing for a second. The atmosphere of the room was tense, to the point of suffocation.

Suddenly a pale hand slowly reached up to his face and froze there for a second…before it dropped down to the zipper of his concealing jacket and swiftly pulled the fastener down to the middle of his chest. Luminous green eyes didn't look up as the hacker raised his head to reveal similarly mangled skin at the base of his neck. From his vantage point Grimmjow could see the scars on Ulquiorra were much deeper than those on Hisagi. He could also see other deep scars peeking out of the jacket. Half-hidden japanese characters and jagged english letters- 'M-I-N' and a crooked 'G' near the center of his chest. Half-concealed by the dark jacket was a nasty cigar burn on Ulquiorra's collarbone and odd stretches and marks were scattered over the rest of the revealed skin.

Green eyes suddenly flicked up, starring at the wall across the room without seeing it. Grimmjow watched as the hand on the zipper fastener gripped tighter before letting go and dropping, limp, to Ulquiorra's side.

Ulquiorra's finally dropped to connect with Hisagi's wide eyes. They stared unwaveringly for a moment before the hacker spoke.

"So how are things going, sixty-nine?"

**A/N: Hey if you like the story, share the love. Review, fav, share. (I fucking love it when you guys review. BTW. *coughcough*)**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Ah Jesus. You know what's a fucking trip? The read-back option on Textedit. That robot voice is the fucking funniest/creepiest/trippiest thing in the world after Tom Hanks in drag. Jesus H. Chirst.**

**Disclaimer: Oh honey, I do disclaim.**

**Warnings: Heavy cussing, mentions of sexual situations, scars, use of unknown drugs, man-on-man lovin' themes, ect. ect. ect.**

Grimmjow watched Szayel throw down his usual cocktail of pills with mild interest. The pink haired agent followed up his popping with a chaser of water, closing his eyes and licking his lips in satisfaction when he had finished. It was interesting how different the immediate, post-medicated Szayel acted compared to the pre-medicated Szayel. It was all little things. A tightened then deliberately loosened fist. A fleeting cagey look that only appeared when the doctor didn't think anyone was paying attention. The twitching of a jaw muscle. The nervous habit of bouncing his foot while sitting.

After the doctor took his medication, all these little ticks disappeared for a couple of hours. Grimmjow watched Szayel visibly relax as he sat on a stool in a diner car some miles off the highway. It was almost fascinating to watch the tension in the man's shoulders disappear, melting away and bring a very small smile to the doctor's face.

The had stopped to eat dinner after they had driven for another 4 hours, per Renji Abarai's instructions. They had another 3 hours of driving to go, but they had decided to stop at a motel for the night. Unlike the now relaxed Szayel, Ulquiorra looked ready to silently fall apart. Ever since they had left Kansei's Auto Parts, the hacker had looked even more out of it than before. He barely touched his cheese burger and sipped quietly and tensely at his iced tea, not talking or particularly looking at anyone. The usual dry wit and soft comments that Ulquiorra usually provided while in a group, though not conversationally momentous, were ominously absent and everyone else felt the uncomfortable atmosphere weigh on them. Except for possibly Szayel.

And why? Grimmjow had no fucking idea.

The blue-haired agent's thoughts wandered back to the scene in the warehouse apartment when Shuhei Hisagi had recognized Ulquiorra as 'Four', and Ulquiorra in turn had addressed the mechanic as 'Sixty-nine'. The conversation that had followed had been cryptic and vague, it's meaning eluding Grimmjow and the rest of his team.

"Never thought I'd see you again, Four." The look on Hisagi's face had been soft, but extremely sad as he spoke. Like he was remembering a bad memory but had dealt with it in his own way. It was rather how Ichigo had looked when he had mentioned 'Tensa' in the interrogation room. But less pained.

"So you got out of that place?" Ulquiorra, on the other hand, looked carefully blank. The mask was back in full force and his fixed gaze on Hisagi was unwaveringly vague.

"Yeah." Hisagi's eyes had gone off to the side in that moment. Ah, there was the pain. But then the look was gone and he was looking at Ulquiorra again. "Thanks to you of course." Hisagi's sad smile had a little more smile in it now. "With both of them gone…it was much easier to find a way out." Pain spike. "I wasn't watched as closely…."

Ulquiorra nodded slowly. "So I'm guessing that pet escaped with you? I ran into him the other day."

This confused Grimmjow. Ulquiorra had been with the team for the last 72+ hours. He wouldn't have met anyone they hadn't and really, there had very little interaction with non-team members. And he had a feeling 'that pet' wasn't an animal.

"Oh Ishida?" Hisagi smiled a little more naturally at the surprised look that broke through Ulquiorra's mask. "Yeah, that's his name. Ishida Urryu. Yeah, no, he got out later on… makes sense, after all," Grey eyes suddenly became extremely hard. "Two subordinates dead, _he_ was bound to want to keep his toys closer to the vest."

From the lack of emotion in that final comment, Grimmjow had a another feeling that '_he_' wasn't this Ishida person.

There was a heavy pause in the conversation before: "You guys close now? That kind of favor takes a lot of effort and time after all."

Hisagi seemed to regard Ulquiorra ruefully. "I dunno, If we had met again…afterwards…and I had asked you to hide this," The mechanic brushed his fingertips over the tattoo on his face, black ink looking so fresh that Grimmjow half expected it to rub off on the man's fingers. "Would you have?"

Ulquiorra looked at Hisagi without blinking for a moment. "Of course."

Hisagi smiled again. "I thought so. You hide yours well."

At that comment Ulquiorra moved his hand to zip up his jacket again, concealing the marks on his chest under dark material.

"I try." The hacker said, eyes dropping before flicking up to fix Hisagi with a meaningful look.

Hisagi looked right back at Ulquiorra before giving a small nod. A wry smile flickered on the handsome man's face. "I assume you already know my name if you found _that_…How about telling me your real name, Four." There was that rueful look again. "I'd like to know the name of the guy I haven't had the chance to properly thank for saving my life."

Saved his life? Grimmjow was sure that Ulquiorra had never even hinted at knowing Hisagi when the man had been first mentioned. The blue-haired agent frowned. Things were beginning to feel…extremely personal. Not that they hadn't up to this point, of course.

Ulquiorra ducked his head and Grimmjow could sworn have he saw the corners of the man's lips turn up ever so slightly. "Ulquiorra Cifer."

Hisagi smiled a little wider. "That really a Romanian name?"

Ulquiorra nodded, head still inclined. Hisagi took a step forward, a lightly scarred wrist gleaming slightly in the light as the former model move to tilt Uquiorra's head up by the chin.

Grimmjow watched as Hisagi brushed his lips over Ulquiorra's left cheek then tilted the hacker's head gently to kiss the other. The mechanic pulled back slightly so he was still extremely close to Ulquiorra's face but could also look directly into the hacker's eyes. The former model was quite a bit taller than the slim hacker and he somewhat had to crane over the shorter man. But despite the close proximity, the two did not seem…intimate. They were not looking romantically into each other's eyes. There was quiet understanding and…comradship.

"Well then. Thank you, Ulquiorra Cifer." Hisagi said, smiling bittersweetly before he stepped away, hand dropping to his side.

Ulquiorra did nothing for a moment, gazing emptily at the floor. Then he nodded, saying nothing.

There was a pause and silence filtered through the room before Grimmjow decided he had enough.

"Mr. Abarai I have a few questions about the whereabouts of Ichigo Kurosaki."

Grimmjow definitely couldn't ignore the intimate conversation that had just taken place but they had come here for a job and he wasn't about to walk out without some solid information.

"Well he ain't here, I can tell ya that." Abarai rolled his shoulders and scratched at his 5 o'clock shadow.

Grimmjow slipped his hands into his pockets, completely relaxed. A normal agent might be scribbling in a notebook or maybe even trying to intimidate Abarai. That was BS. Grimmjow didn't need to be sneaky or manipulative to get information from this kind of guy.

Grimmjow slowly blinked once, mind moving 100 a minute. Ichigo and his brother had been here last night, probably left early that morning. Abarai was a casual fuck, as was Hisagi (respectively). The two of them loaded up on ammunition and wheels, payment either sex or a combination of sex and money.

The stickler was the additional payment for ammunition for his team. Grimmjow's given gun hadn't seemed sabotaged in any way, and it was difficult to bug something so loud and mobile. There might be trackers but Grimmjow had a feeling that Ichigo didn't play that way. He remembered the look of merriment the redhead had worn in the interrogation room and the agent knew for a fact that Ichigo wouldn't spoil the chase by constantly keeping tabs on his team.

So why the weapons? Were they a tease? A sort of '_You're gonna need 'em, dollface_' taunt? Grimmjow turned the puzzle over in his head as he continued with his questions.

"Is there any particular place in America he and his brother might head for from here?" Grimmjow thought for a moment. "A fellow electronics expert maybe?"

Bullseye. The agent almost smiled as Abarai began nodding slowly, seemingly remembering something. Electronics were Ichigo's forte it seemed and he probably need to juice up on that as they had with weapons and wheels.

"He did mention something about the geek-whore, didn't he, Shu?" Abarai threw an arm around his current lover as the formal model plunked his ass down on the sofa next to the weapons expert.

Hisagi nodded absentmindedly. "He has a name, Renji…."

Abarai rolled his eyes minutely. "A'fore they left Ichi said sum thin' bout upgrading for better communication or some shit. Ishida Urryu was mentioned in passing. Suggestive passing of course."

Then it clicked. Grimmjow had understood at least part of the ambiguous conversation between Ulquiorra and Hisagi . Some agent he was. Really.

In the present, Grimmjow popped a steak fry in his mouth as he thought about how much sense it had finally made. Ishida Urryu was the hacker Ulquiorra had beaten yesterday. He had found the recent picture, had recognized the tattoo (or so Grimmjow assumed), and had realized who Hisagi was.

Which shouldn't have mattered to Grimmjow. It shouldn't have bothered him. Ulquiorra's past should stay his own. Things did _not _get personal in Grimmjow's team.

But Grimmjow couldn't ignore it. Ichigo Kurosaki didn't make a move without making sure he knew every single effect that move would trigger. And he had no doubt that the MIT graduate already knew what none of his team knew about Ulquiorra. He would have to. By baiting Grimmjow, Ichigo had to know he would not even think of tracking the other man down without his team. Yeah, it wouldn't have mattered 8 years ago…when Grimmjow had always worked alone. But that wasn't how he worked now. Things were different. And so Ichigo would know just as much about his team than what he appeared to know about Grimmjow.

Grimmjow almost felt the scar on his stomach twitch…No, he couldn't know about that…he couldn't. No one else…could possibly know about that.

…Bottom line, he could not ignore this development from within his team. Grimmjow cast a side-long glance at Ulquiorra finally nibbling on his burger. Everything was significant. Everything meant something, and all these everythings would, somehow, impossibly, bring them back to Ichigo. Grimmjow felt it in his gut, a dark…ominous feeling….

"So how about tellin' us the story with you and Mr. Eyes?"

Grimmjow glance at Nnoitra, sitting two stools away, between Szayel and Starrk. The boney agent was stretching, the greasy remains of his meal pushed away from him. Grimmjow could practically hear joints creak as the lanky man relaxed again elbows wide apart on the counter and face craned to look at the now unmoving Ulquiorra.

The hacker slowly set his burger down not saying anything and Grimmjow glanced at Starrk next to him. The older agent shrugged. '_Let the man get all the stupid out of his system.'_ The look seemed to say. Grimmjow glanced back to Nnoitra, who continued in face of Ulquiorra's non-responsiveness.

"Japanese people don't fucking kiss other people on the cheek as a fucking thank you. Mr. Eye-guy's Yakuza yeah, but he ain't fucking French or nothing."

Grimmjow's eyebrow raised at that French comment, but said nothing. Ignorant idiot could make himself look like a fool for all he cared. And Grimmjow really had no allegiance to his mother country. Just another place with fucked up memories. One of many.

"So what's the story, Ulqui?" Grimmjow heard the aloof interest in Nnoitra's voice, despite the relaxed position he was in, leaning against the diner car counter.

Ulquiorra said nothing, his hands set neatly on his knees.

Granted, Nnoitra's reasoning was valid. Japanese people were inherently more reserved than say, Americans. Yakuza were a different breed and were often the acceptation to the rule, as Ichigo was, obviously. But Hisagi had seemed right Japanese, regardless of his entrance. If he had wanted to properly thank Ulquiorra he would have bowed respectively. The kisses had been strange to say the least.

"Just leave him alone."

Heads turned to look at the pink haired doctor. Szayel had a fork in his hand but wasn't eating the salad he had ordered. The man wasn't looking up though, his head slightly inclined, pink hair hiding his face.

"I'm just saying it's strange is all." Nnoitra did not usually relent. Never, it seemed.

"And you would know about strange, wouldn't you?" Szayel suddenly snapped, turning cruel honey-tinted eyes on the lanky agent. "Mr. _I'm-not-actually-a-gunman_. Yeah, I bet you know all about fishy things, _Nnoi_."

Though Nnoitra was facing away from Grimmjow, the blue-haired agent could almost see how the man's single purple eye narrowed at Szayel.

Oh yeah. That was another thing on the list of weird stuff that happened in Kensei's Auto Parts.

Abarai had refused to let the team leave until he had properly equipped all of them, which meant getting a very reluctant Nnoi to comply with the weapon master's request of seeing his hands. Now that Grimmjow looked back on the exchange Nnoi had acted…uncharacteristically elusive.

When they had convinced Nnoi to let Abarai see his hands after a few terse, choice words, the weapons dealer…started to laugh. It started out small until he seriously began to crack up, gripping Nnoitra's hands and glancing back at them every so often merely to laugh even harder.

"Oh mama! Whoo." Abarai finally let the lanky agent's hands go, not moving from his spot to root through his pile of weapons as he had for the others, still chuckling and glancing back at Nnoitra's stony face.

"Shit, man. I guess you really don't need a piece." Abarai flopped down on the sofa once more, smiling widely.

Nnoitra's one eye was glaring hard at the weapons dealer, but he said nothing.

"Oh my," A faux look of surprise lit up Abarai's face. "Have you not told yer buddies here about yer previous occupation?" The weapons dealer fell into another round of hearty cackles. Tears of mirth began to gather at the corner of Abarai's eyes as he reached to grab around his well toned middle. "Oh my fucking God, that's too fucking rich! You poor motherfucking liar. What didja tell 'em? That you're just a mother. Fucking. Extra. Gunner?" Abarai seemed to be having trouble catching his breath between his laughs. The weapons dealer leaned back, trying to control his laughs, giggling as he continued. "I should have fucking seen it when you walked in, not a fucking tense muscle in your skinny-ass body."

Grimmjow turned from the still laughing Abarai to look at Nnoitra. And Grimmjow could see what Abarai meant. Nnoi was completely…relaxed. Except for his eye. It was still narrowed to a slit. Now that Grimmjow thought about it, that was usually how Nnoitra was, never tensed up, body almost always totally relaxed. It was a ready body, Grimmjow now saw. A body ready to spring into action at any given moment, in any direction. He had seen it before, flashes of how quick Nnoitra could be. One second the man could be completely still and the next 5 men surrounding him could be dead, shot through the head.

Abarai had now almost completely controlled himself. "I suppose ya could use yer talents ta fire a gun. But-" Suddenly Abarai was laughing all over again. "God it's too fucking funny!" The weapons dealer wheezed. "A fucking martial artist passing himself off as a gunman. Ah shit," Abarai clutched at his side, a grin still on his face, "Ima rupture my spleen. Ah fuck. How fucking long have you played at this gunner bullshit, man? Nevermind, yer hands practically speak fer themselves. What, 8, 9 years?" Renji threw his arms back over the back of the couch, his laughs now dying down to a chuckle.

"Forget it, You don't need a gun. Just get the hell out of my shop before I break a rib laughing like this."

Nnoitra said nothing still, and the silence had almost creeped Grimmjow out. He watched as the supposed gunman shoved his hands into the pockets of his tattered jeans and turned to walk out of the room. As he passed Grimmjow saw it. In his stride. At any point in his step Nnoitra could lash out in any direction. The way he carried his body he could twist without effort. He was completely open but at the same time completely full of possibilities.

Sitting at the diner counter Grimmjow realized something else. Nnoitra was limber. Extremely flexible. The man was constantly stretching his body, now that Grimmjow thought of it. He moved with a slight swagger that was constantly switching his body position so he could pivot and attack from any angle. It had never really occurred to Grimmjow that Nnoitra was anything other than a pretty good marksman. He had never looked into it before because the man always got his job done. But now that he knew it, he could see it clearly. Nnoitra was a lethal fighter.

And Szayel seemed to be provoking him. Scornful honey-shaded eye were boring though lens and body as the doctor regarded Nnoitra with distaste and Nnoitra said, perplexingly, nothing. Grimmjow didn't move though. Nnoitra had had the chance to beat the shit out of Szayel at any time. The blue-haired agent had the feeling Nnoi wasn't about to start now.

After all. Grimmjow had never once seen Nnoitra physically fight anyone.

Honestly. He had seen the man through a punch maybe one time. But mostly Nnoitra was positioned as reliable back up. Distance shooter. And the man had never complained, not seriously at least.

So Grimmjow wasn't terribly concerned for Szayel. That and the fact that deep down, Grimmjow had a feeling that Nnoitra didn't completely hate the doctor. He wouldn't have put up with being in the same team as him. That was just how Nnoi was.

On the other hand, Szayel didn't look his usual level of pissed prissiness. He looked seriously mad, silently glaring at his teammate. Grimmjow expected a long winded 'Stop-being-a-thick-headed-hypocrite' speech to erupt at any moment.

Needless to say Grimmjow had a feeling he wasn't the only one who was shocked when Szayel stood up and strode toward the door of the diner car. The definitive slam of the door reverberated through the place.

"…Couldn't ya have kept yer big-ass mouth shut?" Grimmjow glanced at Starrk who was now nursing a cold cup of decaf. The usual tired tone in his voice had an exasperated edge to it.

Nnoitra glanced at Starrk himself before he slowly leaned back to prop his elbows on the diner counter, saying nothing for a moment. Then- "'S not like the freak's not gonna come back."

The lanky agent's voice had none of it's usual spit and vinegar. Grimmjow templed his knuckles.

"It you weren't such an asshole he wouldn't have walked out in the first place," Grimmjow muttered warningly.

Smartly, Nnoitra said nothing and silence reigned for a few minutes. Szayel was a drama queen, yeah, but the man loved lecturing people more than anything. Him walking out on putting Nnoitra back in his place was about as normal as a Japanese man kissing someone on the cheek.

Now the reason for 'purchasing' personal weapons for the team made sense. Grimmjow wasn't sure whether to be pissed or worried. Ichigo had known about Nnoi. Known things that had somehow impossibly gone unnoticed right under Grimmjow's nose for more than 2 years. Ichigo knew Abarai would analyze them all perfectly, Nnoi in particular.

Grimmjow almost felt a chill go up his spine as he contemplated what Ichigo was doing. What he assumed Ichigo was doing. The concept forming in Grimmjow's mind needed more proof to confirm but if he was right, the main question was 'Why?' Why was Ichigo doing this…what the hell was that man up to…?

"Where is he, Ulqui?" Grimmjow didn't look up from his hands. Concerning the current evident-stupidity-of-Nnoitra situation, the agent was getting close to being very pissed off.

There was no reply for a moment before Grimmjow heard the light tap-tap of Ulquiorra's fingers working on his iPhone.

"2 blocks, 'Granger's Liquor'. He's not moving."

Grimmjow nodded. Ulquiorra could track any of the team down via their phones. Grimmjow didn't have the faintest idea of what Szayel could be doing, but he knew the doctor wouldn't just up and dessert.

"Get a doggy bag for that," the agent said, referring to Ulquiorra's burger. Grimmjow pushed himself of his stool and headed for the diner door himself. "Szay knows the hotel number. Let's go."

Szayel would mosey on back in his own time. And honestly, Grimmjow really didn't want to deal with a temperamental team at the moment. A normal team was hard enough to deal with 95% of the time, he didn't get paid nearly enough to deal with this crap.

**A/N: I'm sorry this took a fuck of a long time to come out but Jesus I've had a unhappily busy summer. I sincerely apologize. If I take too long again you guys can PM me, like Sycokiller did, and get me the fuck back on track. So now that it's out, review it and shit and I'll try my best to get the next damn chapter out, promise. Plus my other fic '_Return_', is a thing, so. Yeah. Ph-v out.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: ARGH, I WANNA WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER SO BAD. But I have college applications to fill out. Fuck.**

**Disclaimers: *proclaims her disclaims***

**Warnings: Dude, I'm too fucking tired for this crap. If you've gotten this far, you already know the schpeal.**

Grimmjow leaned against one of the Bentley Continental GTSs out in their current motel's parking lot. Hisagi had given them as a gift. Normally alarm bells would have been ringing in Grimmjow's head at the sight of a drag racer giving up such beautiful and powerful vehicles. But he noted the gift comment was directed at Ulquiorra and relaxed. No tricks here. Besides, Hisagi seemed like the good sort, despite being a Yakuza.

Grimmjow glanced over his shoulder at the gleaming black chrome of the sleek vehicle. These babies were built for speed and silence. They handled like a dream, as Grimmjow had found last night. Smooth as butter and quiet as the soft purr of a kitten. He ran a hand over hood almost regretfully. His team probably wouldn't be using them much longer. Grimmjow knew Ichigo wouldn't stay in this country for much longer. What ever he was doing, whatever he was searching for, it was probably tied into Yakuza business. Which meant going into Yakuza territory. He would have to get Ulquiorra on arranging airline tickets from the closest airport to Urryu Ishida's place.

The corner of Grimmjow's mouth twisted into a grimace. Ulquiorra had been quiet going back to the motel from the diner and had said nothing all morning. In fact, everyone on the team had barely said anything at all, a disgruntled atmosphere weighing heavily on the group. For some reason it felt like they were all waiting for some ominous ax to drop.

Grimmjow thought back to last night as he had been getting ready for sleep. Starrk was at the window, already keeping watch, Nnoitra and Ulquiorra were already asleep. Or at least they seemed to be asleep. Ulquiorra's chest was rising and falling convincingly but Grimmjow knew the hacker preferred to fall asleep next to another warm body, and Szayel wasn't back yet.

The blue haired agent had just finished rechecking his new weapon for the third time that day when Starrk had called him over from his post at the window.

"Grimmjow, you better look at this."

Grimmjow was at the window in a second, loaded gum primed in his hand. Confusion flitted across his face when Starrk pushed the weapon down.

"Lamppost, 30 meters."

Grimmjow peered out the window, eyes adjusting to the dark moonless night until he could focus on the lamppost on the corner of the street next to the motel's parking lot. The actual light wasn't working and the only light illuminating the corner was from a lamppost further down the street. Grimmjow eyes narrowed as he recognized the figure leaning against the metal structure.

"The hell is he doing?"

Szayel was leaning against the post, facing away from the motel, not hiding really, just standing there, in the semi-dark.

"Just wait."

Grimmjow frowned at Starrk's words until a second later when he saw Szayel's arm move to flick something to the street. His head turned and suddenly the doctor's face was lit up by the flame of a lighter. Grimmjow's eyes widened as he watched his medic light a cigarette and inhale expertly before the lighter's flame was extinguished.

Grimmjow was shocked. There was no other word for it. Dr. Szayel Aporro Granz, health-freak extraordinaire, was smoking. How could Grimmjow _not_ be shocked?

"Watch, it gets better." Grimmjow could hear the hint childlike wonder and enjoyment in Starrk's words. As if he was watching some amazing carnival attraction.

The younger agent did as suggested and blinked when Szayel cast down another finished cigarette bud exactly as he had not 60 seconds earlier. The doctor proceeded to light another in the same way as before.

"I just watched him go through 5 or 6 but he's been there much longer."

Grimmjow glanced at the amused agent next to him before he shook his head and backed away from the window. This was too strange. Ulquiorra knowing a suspect, Nnoi a martial artist, and now Szayel a fucking competitive chain smoker?

Now leaning against the Bentley, Grimmjow watched as Szayel made his way down the outside steps of the motel from the smoking level (usually selected for Starrk's smoking habit), duffel back over his shoulder. The man looked immaculate as always, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle on his lavender button-up. But as the man pasted him to throw his luggage into the trunk, Grimmjow caught an almost indiscernible whiff of cigarette smoke.

Grimmjow had heard the doctor coming in the hotel room in the early hours of the

morning, walking swiftly to the bathroom as if he himself wanted to get the stink of

cigarette smoke of his skin as soon as humanly possible. So while Szayel seemed

an adamant disliker of cigarettes, for some reason (Nnoitra's assholery perhaps)

the doctor felt the need for an extended carcinogenic lapse into sin.

"Are we possibly leaving any time soon?"

The blue-haired blinked once before he realized the haughty tone was coming from within the sleek car. Why was he zoning out?

Without responding, Grimmjow swiftly yanked open the door before sliding in and revving up the engine. He had a feeling today wasn't going to be fun.

**(I am a vampire page break. I ripsy your jugular out and drinksy your blood. And I don't sparkle like a pussy.)**

Urryu Ishida's house looked pretty normal. It was in the run down part of the city, a sort of a shabby-looking neighborhood, on the corner of a street. The house was a stand alone in dirt lot with no front yard, but a rickety paint-peeled porch with creaky-looking stairs leading up to the front door. The street was empty, the shops on either side boarded up.

Grimmjow's team parked across the street and got out of their cars cautiously. Urryu Ishida might not be a weapon's dealer but he was a known ally of the Yakuza. Or so he assumed. Ulquiorra hadn't been exactly forthcoming in terms of information for the past 24 hours or so. But best safe than sorry.

Half-way across the street there was a loud whooping sound that stopped Grimmjow's team in their tracks.

"TAKE THAT, Mugetsu! You FUCKING FUCK." This was followed by a strangely musical cackle and very loud and mysterious thump.

Grimmjow blinked as he realized the voice could only be coming from Ishida's house. He cast a glance to Starrk who gave his trademark shrug. Grimmjow fixed the narrow, two-story house with cautious cyan eyes before he started forward again, know his team would follow. Ishida (he assumed the voice was Ishida's) continued to laugh, the sound carrying though the open windows of the house and into the street.

The laughing stopped when the first step of the stairs let out its advertised creak as Grimmjow began to walk up them. Before his whole team had reached the top of the porch there were three more irregular thumps, a low curse, and the sound of a body hitting the front door.

Before Grimmjow had even raised a hand to knock on it, the front door opened with a jerk, only wide enough for a slim bundle of pale skin and bright silk robe to step out and slam the door behind him.

Uuryu Ishida looked breathless, hurried, and beautiful. If his robe hadn't been hanging open on his thin frame Grimmjow might have thought the hacker was a woman. Metalic lenses perched precariously on a straight nose, thick black eyelashes fluttered as the man's deep blue eyes flitted back and forth across his porch. Pale pink lips were licked then bitten in thought and a slight blush was blooming the man's pale cheek bones. The hacker almost nervously brushed a lock of straight ebony hair away from his face. Grimmjow added embarrassed to the list of things Uuryu Ishida looked.

Possibly because of how he was dressed. Or rather, wasn't. A richly colored silk robe was tied so loosely to the hacker's body that a strip of black boxers ending at creamy upper thigh could be seen by all of Grimmjow's team. The man's feet were bare and hairless model's legs were crossed at the ankles and braced against the front door.

"Look I know you came to ask about the Kurosakis but I _cannot_ let you into the house at the moment."

Ishida's words came out in a tumble before Grimmjow had even opened his. The man's chest was heaving slightly and Grimmjow was close enough to see angry red marks splayed across his collarbone. At the sight, Grimmjow cold raised an eyebrow at the hacker.

"Yes, they were here but now they're gone, trust me, but you're going to have to give me 5 minutes to…clean up...before you can come in." Ishida's eyes darted away for a nanosecond, recalculating something. "Maybe 7." The hacker nodded, mostly to himself. "Just stay out here for 7 minutes. I have information you can use so don't go anywhere, just stay put. And you."

Ishida was looking harshly at Ulquiorra. The team hacker blinked emotionlessly as all of his teammates turned to look at him as Ishida was.

"I especially want to talk to you, so don't just disappear again,_ Liliac_."

Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed to green slits. "What ever you say, _Quincy._"

Grimmjow missed Ishida slipping back into the house because he was still staring at his hacker. Never had Grimmjow heard that kind of emotion in Ulquiorra's voice. He glanced back at the now closed front door. What had Ishida done to make Ulquiorra say his title (he assumed) so tauntingly.

"Okay seriously, what the fuck is up with you?"

Grimmjow almost had said the same thing himself and for once did not feel like whacking Nnoitra upside the head.

Ulquiorra crossed his arms over his thin chest and it stuck Grimmjow that Ishida and Ulquiorra were physically very similar.

"Liliac means 'Bat' in Romanian. It's my handle. My username of sorts. Ishida-san is part german. 'Quincy' is a family name."

Ulquiorra paused. "I knew him when I was 16. Though 'know' might be too broad a term…we had met in passing. I became very familiar with his work at that time. Out of necessity."

Ulquiorra spoke softly and Grimmjow noticed how the hacker's hand clenched involuntarily when he said 'at that time'. The hand relaxed before Ulquiorra continued.

"I estimate him to be 3 years older than myself so he would be about 23 now. I've run into him more often lately. Online of course. Concerning Yakuza privacy for the better part. He was key in hiding information concerning Ichigo Kurosaki and he has been something of a pain. I came up against him most recently 2 days ago, looking for information on Shuhei Hisagi." Ulquiorra had lifted his head and a small twitch in the corner of his mouth hinted of a smile. "As it were, he is mostly a offensive hack. Artful and talented, yes, but lacking in practical skills."

"You damn well know why I _lack_ in practical skills."

The door had now swung completely open and Uuryu Ishida leaned against the frame, one hand on a feminine hip and glaring balefully at his fellow hacker.

"I prefer to look at it more positively than that."

Ulquiorra's tone had changed completely. It was now frigidly cool. Green eyes stared coldly at Ishida before the bespectacled man glanced down, baleful look replaced with careful blankness.

Then Ishida moved away from doorway to walk down the hall leading to the inside of his house.

"You all coming in or not?"

Grimmjow waited until Ishida was a ways down the hall before turning and fixing them all with a businesslike look. "Let's all try bein' fucking civil, how's that sound?" He let his gaze linger on Ulquiorra for a moment before he walked into the house, knowing his team would follow.

As he walked down the illy lit hall, Grimmjow allowed himself to be mad at Ulquiorra for a few moments. The hacker had had information on a suspect and the man deliberately kept quiet. Twice. The man was neglecting his job. Whatever the hell was happening in his personal time was getting in the way of him serving his purpose on Grimmjow team.

And it pissed Grimmjow off.

Here they were, possibly their biggest job ever, up against one of the most formidable opponents in the business of crime and more than half of his team may just be letting their personal bullshit get in the way of doing their jobs. As far as he could remember, Grimmjow had never had to deal with this crap ever, not with this team, and definitely not working alone. The agent could almost hear the roar of anger in his ears.

It was a moment before the agent realized he could hear an actual roar.

As Grimmjow and his team neared the end of the hallway there was the distinctly raucous sound of jet printers, computer processors, and fans. Grimmjow's team finally reached the end of the hall to be confronted with a buzzing hive of electronics. What might have been a normal living room in another house appeared to be the central nervous system of a complex intel center with enough power to rival even a national security agency. Angainst the wall were various copiers, printers, and other unidentifiable machines working overtime for whatever reason. On a counter that lead into a kitten there were small mountains of portable electronics, including, but not limited to tablets, smartphones, laptops, voice recorders, cameras, and video-recorders. About 9 different monitors with sizes ranging from a small toaster oven to an indoor ping pong table were mounted to one wall with bundles of wires trailing down to the floor or the desk in front of them, layered with individual keyboards. There was a similar, if not smaller set up against the opposite wall, with about 5 monitors.

What was strange though, was that every monitor was haphazardly covered with a blanket.

Every blanketed monitor had a working fan facing it, so as not to get over heated, Grimmjow assumed. Which was why there was stray papers seemed to be flying around the room at amazing speeds and in strange directions.

As Grimmjow looked closer at the concealed monitors, he deduced that they all had the same image frozen on the screen. The light that filtered through the thinner blankets was mostly peach, tan, and white, with a bit of black and orange at the top.

The blue-haired agent glanced around the chaotic room for Uuryu Ishida and found the hacker somehow nestled between the wall and several printers that were going off like sirens. He could catch a few choice curses and a "I leave the room for one fucking second-" from the hunched over hacker. The machines were spitting out the same picture over and over again, piles of the image gathering on the floor.

Grimmjow leaned down to scoop one up, warmth from the newly birthed paper absorbing into his fingertips. The agent found himself looking at two attractive men flipping off the camera. White and orange hair styled to a manageable length, the the paler twin was sticking out a strangely tinted blue tongue. The more colorful brother was sticking his own tongue out to to touch his copy's, winking as he did. Grimmjow could tell from the seats and lit 'no phones'/'buckle seat belts' signs above the two that the Kurosaki brothers were on a plane.

Grimmjow sighed before he raised his voice to carry over the din of the patch work intel-room.

"Ishida-san, do you mind if we search your house?" Grimmjow folded the printed picture and slipped it into his jacket pocket. If this picture was recent, it meant his prediction of the mount of time they were staying in America for this job was up.

Suddenly the overall noise of the room dropped.

The printers had stopped running and now the only sounds were the hum of the monitors and low buzz of the fans singing an electronic duet. Ishida's upper body emerged from behind the printers, long-fingered hand pushing hair back from his flushed face, small frown set on his face.

"What for?"

Grimmjow clasped his arms behind his back, an open stance. He felt the warmth the paper had given him fade and the playful look on Ichigo's face flashed to the front of his mind before he pushed it away. He had business to attend to.

"Just a routine check for evidence. The Kurosakis may not have been here at all. We'd just like to check, if you don't mind." Grimmjow allowed a small, 'friendly' smile grace his face.

Ishida looked at Grimmjow hard for a second and Grimmjow knew his fake smile wasn't fooling the hacker. Still the beautiful man shrugged carelessly, tossing a glance around the room. "Do what you please, anything I want to hide isn't going to be sitting in my walking closet."

Grimmjow also cast a glance at the of the hacker's equipment and nodding to himself. Anything important in this house would be stored in the man's virtual playground. Of course he wouldn't mind if they poked around his kitchen pantry.

Grimmjow looked over his shoulder at Szayel, who was already slipping his elegantly manicured hands into blue forensics gloves, and at the doctor. Immediately, the man disappeared down another hall leading away from the living room. Grimmjow looked at Nnoitra and gestured with a flick of his chin for the hired gun to follow. Nnoitra rolled his eyes and let out a huff before he stalked off after the doctor. Grimmjow watched the tall dark figure recede, hoping shallowly that the two men would be on better speaking terms by the time Szayel was done with his check. Probably not, but it was worth a shot.

The blue-haired agent turned his attention back to Ishida, who was now climbing over a small mountain of printers, movements surprisingly angle for a person who spent most of his time in front of a computer. Through he shouldn't have been surprised, he did work with Ulquiorra after all. Grimmjow knew the team hacker could definitely take care of himself in a tight situation.

"Ishida-san, is it possible for you to answer a few questions on the whereabouts of Ichigo Kurosaki and his brother Shirosaki Tenshou."

Grimmjow began moseying around the room when Starrk began talking him his soothing baritone.

"That's a question easily answered with time." Grimmjow glanced at the hacker who was now leaning against the kitchen counter heaped with electronics. The man was definitely less embarrassed than when his team had first encountered him. Evidently, Uuryu Ishida's flustered first appearance had nothing to do with how he was dressed, as the man did nothing to secure his robe more securely. As he twisted behind him to snatched up a smartphone with pale fingers, the effortless flexing of Ishida's abdominals (the kind a thin man who never exercises naturally has) showed in the blatant parting of material.

"It is now 10:52, so I estimate the Kurosakis are halfway over the Pacific."

The hacker lightly tossed his selected phone into a small pile of its kin on the counter.

Ishida fixed Starrk with a haughty look. "Next question?"

Grimmjow didn't have to look at Starrk to know the man was smiling softly, not offended by the hacker's bored tone in the least. "So they are headed to Japan?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Because they miss eating natto."

Grimmjow allowed himself a half-smirk at Ishida's snippish remark. That was a dish you certainly couldn't find in America.

"…How long have you known the Kurosakis, Ishida-san?" Grimmjow glanced up from his inspection off all the scattered papers on the floor (they were all the same airplane picture) t look at Starrk. The man's smile was gone. Grimmjow blinked, then brushed it off. If Grimmjow was getting tired, Starrk might be too. He wasn't the only one who wanted information.

Ishida probably noticed the slight shift of atmosphere as well. His next reply was fairly straight forward.

"I met him around the time I first encountered Liliac. Or Koumori as he was known in that place."

Grimmjow turned to look at Ulquiorra, who had stayed to back of the room, leaning up against the hallway entrance. The man's eyes were blank, his body language shouting 'closed off' with his arms crossed and his head lowered.

_''Koumori'…that's just 'bat' again, in Japanese though….'_ Grimmjow thought absently.

"I was under the impression he was known as 'Four'."

Ulquiorra's eyes shot up, now wide. Starrk was still looking at Ishida and did not see the panic in the team hacker's face.

Ishida did though, and a thin eyebrow raised minutely. "That is true, but I was under the impression this interview only concerned my knowledge of the Kurosakis…"

Ishida trailed off, still looking intently at Ulquiorra who had managed to wrestle his face into a deceptively aloof mask. But It was too late. Grimmjow saw it.

Under no circumstances did Ulquiorra want anyone to even ask about his past.

Initially, Grimmjow was curious…and yet….

"It is." Grimmjow began approaching Ishida, casting a sidelong glance at Starrk. Starrk had taken it a step too far. Thing did not get personal on Grimmjow's team. End. Of. Story. Grimmjow sidled up to the counter Ishida was leaning against, eyeing the agent warily. The agent in question smiled the same small smile as before. "So how about telling' us why the Kurosakis are headed to Japan?"

There was a heavy silence in the room as Grimmjow smiled the fake smile that did not reach his eyes and Ishida tried his best to hold the cold cyan gaze. He looked as if he were about to break when a loud voice came from the hallway.

"Oi, Grimm!"

Grimmjow turned from the yakuza hacker, ready bite Nnoitra's head off but had to raise his hand to catch the evidence bag that was flying at his face. Grimmjow bit off a curse on the way out of his mouth when he noticed what he had in his hand.

Inside the ziplock bag was a bound ponytail of vibrant orange hair.

"This one, too."

Grimmjow caught the next ziplock bag more readily, this one filled with a short snow-white braid.

"There's your evidence then. They were here." Ishida walked past Grimmjow, towards the kitchen. Grimmjow frowned. Sneaky bugger.

From behind Nnoitra appeared Szayel, pink eyebrows lifted playfully. "Excuse me, Ishida-san, but you should really wash your bed sheets more often. And your bathroom mirror. And all of your walls."

Uuryu Ishida had frozen in the entryway to his kitchen.

The doctor 'hmmed' melodically, glasses seemingly twinkling with mirth as he slowly removed his laytex gloves. "Yes, it's quite a mess in there."

The hacker turned slowly to glare to the team's doctor. The look would have made a lesser man quail in his shoes, but it did nothing to deter the doctor.

"Well, pardon me." Ishida slowly started towards Szayel. "It completely slipped my mind." The hacker took a deliberate step. "I'll do that right now-oh _wait_." Ishida's voice was slowly rising from the soft volume it had started from. "I can't. You see, I'm a little busy trying to get _Ichigo Kurosaki _off my virtual ASS." Ishida raised his arms up, gesturing to the blanket covered, frozen monitors. "If you hadn't noticed, this place isn't exactly _up and operational_." The yakuza suddenly kicked up a small storm of papers from off the floor, images of Ichigo and Shiro showering the CIA agents. "I've been up since 5 o-fucking-clock trying to get control of my equipment back, _thank you very much._" Another step. Ishida was starting to look seriously unhinged, glasses on the tip of his nose, an angry flush climbing up his neck. "I barely killed the auto and froze the fucking feed 2 hours ago, but I'd like to to see _you_ do better when _Ichigo fucking Kurosaki_ is hacking you from an iPhone over the fucking PACIFIC OCEAN! So _excuse fucking me_ when I don't have time to get rid of all the fucking evidence of having _my brains screwed out by the Kurosaki brothers_ when one of them is _still obviously FUCKING ME IN THE ASS_."

Ishida was now two feet away from Szayel and Grimmjow couldn't see the doctor's expression from from his place but he imagined it might be something akin to amusement.

Suddenly, the printer next to Ishida's foot started up and the hacker whirled on it.

"THAT'S GREAT! THAT'S JUST FUCKING GREAT!" Ishida's head snapped from the printer to a corner of the ceiling. "FUCK YOU, MUGETSU, FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING 'CASUAL VISITS' AND YOUR FUCKING PUPPY EYES AND-" The hacker swooped down to scoop up the freshly printed paper and then turned to wave it at what Grimmjow turned to see was a surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling. "LEAVE MY FUCKING PRINTERS ALONE YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

So Ichigo had hacked the man's house completely. He was probably watching what was going on, live, 13 thousand feet above the Pacific. The thought might have been unnerving but Grimjow always worked under the assumption that he was being watched. It made for a much less flustered operation.

Ishida was rather worked up at this point, chest heaving and hand gripping the printer paper. Finally the man wrenched his glower from the camera to the the paper. Blue eyes quickly scanned what appeared to be a typed message. The eyes closed slowly and the hacker exhaled deeply before raising a hand to push the stock of midnight hair back from his face. The hand with the paper, clutched much more loosely, was extended towards Grimmjow.

"It's for you."

Grimmjow blinked. He took the slightly crumpled paper, scanning with guarded eyes….

...His left arm twitched. The scar tissue from his back and abdominals seemed to ache.

Such a simple taunt. And yet.

Ichigo knew. The man _knew_.

The agent stiffly began folding the paper into halves. He was stopped at Uuryu Ishida's now tired voice. The hacker was rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses with one hand and propping a hand against his back, unintentionally accenting his slight figure.

"So do you gentlemen have anymore questions?"

Grimmjow stuffed the folded paper into his jacket pocket, next to the printed paper. Threw a look towards his teammates that read _'We'll discuss that message later.'_

"Yeah I have a question, why the fuck would a guy grow out his hair so fucking long?"

Grimmjow raised an eyebrow at Nnoitra's question.

"You're one to talk." Snipped Szayel, reaching up to tug at a lock of long black hair that trailed out from under the gunman's bandana.

Nnoitra didn't bother to swat the doctor's hand away. "I just don't give a shit. Neither did that fucker, Shiro. Guy just needed a haircut. The redhead used fucking _product_. Kid fucking cared about his hair-why the fuck did he care?" Nnoi fixed one violently purple eye on the hacker, waiting for a reply.

"You don't use product?" Grimmjow almost laughed at the look on Ishida's face before the hacker shook himself out of his thoughts. True, Nnoitra had ridiculously stylish hair, the kind any school girl would be jealous of. He could almost understand the surprise in Ishida's eyes. The hacker got back on track. "Well, Ichigo loves disguises."

No surprise there. A thought struck Grimmjow. "Does he prefer any particular disguise?" Grimmjow thought back to the get up he first met Ichigo in, the jet black hair, the blood red eyes.

"If you've seen him in the past 5 months you probably saw Mugetsu." There was that name again, the one Ishida had been shouting before Grimmjow's team came up his walk. "That's one of his favorites. It's also his handle." Ishida reached up to push his glasses to his nose and in a second, the well-fucked, provocatively-dressed man was gone and was replaced by a very professional, tie-wearing, half-japanese man giving information in a professional, straight-forward way. "Ichigo had gone by several names and has numerous disguises, ranging from rough street fighter to high-paying female prostitute. He was, as you know, a conman. Not surprisingly, he was a con-woman half the time." Ishida gestured to one of the few pictures on the the otherwise clutter wall. "In fact, that picture was taken three Halloweens ago, before he had to leave to Kyoto."

All heads of Grimmjow's team turned to look at the picture. It wasn't very big, most likely from a disposable camera and Grimmjow picked it off the wall to get a better look. Black cat ears stuck up through Ichigo's curled orange hair and the smokey makeup made the man look strikingly feminine. A convincingly stuffed black bustier began at a bucked collar around his neck and lacework trailed down his front. A short, black leather skirt clung to his hips and a fake cat tail swing from behind fish-netted legs. He was even wearing heels. Ridiculously tall black stilettos. The picture seemed to be taken as Ichigo was laughing at something, making him look even more beautiful.

Something twisted in Grimmjow's gut.

The agent froze. The fuck was that? He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. Nothing. It was nothing.

Ichigo was a target. That was all. He was a target Grimmjow wanted to corner, prey to be rendered immobile.

Grimmjow would not have petty emotions getting in the way of the hunt. It might not be the brutal, fast-paced hunt he had once been groomed for, but it was a hunt, and it was his. Ichigo was the prey, more wily and cunning than any past quarry, but prey nonetheless.

Grimmjow's eyes hardened as he continued to look at the picture. At he blush in Ichigo's cheeks, the slimness of the somehow male body. There was only one thing Ichigo was, and there was no softness to be attached to the title.

_'My prey...'_

Suddenly something in the corner of the picture caught Grimmjow's eye.

Grimmjow studied it for a moment before deciding how he would approach this.

Grimmjow looked up and at Starrk, offering the older agent the picture nonchalantly. As his teammate took the picture, Grimmjow addressed Ishida without looking at him.

"So who's the boy in the mirror?"

Grimmjow's voice was casual, as if he didn't care in the least. Simple question, to be answered without thinking….

"Oh, Tensa?"

Bingo.

Grimmjow looked up just as the yakuza hacker realized what he had just said. Ishida froze, eyes widening drastically before darting up to look at the semi-smirking Grimmjow.

In the picture, Ichigo was standing in front of a mirror. The angle of it concealed the photo-taker but revealed the head and shoulders of a person adjusting their makeup in what was assumed a mirror on another wall. The person's face was mostly hidden, but Grimmjow was able to discern wavy brown locks and a slender hand reaching up to dab at an eyebrow.

It had been a wild guess, really out in left field, but Grimmjow had a feeling. Ichigo's laughing face. The shine in his eyes.

The agent's eye's were cold as he addressed Ishida again.

"What? Not been given permission to talk about him?"

Grimmjow's smirk disappeared, leaving nothing but the cold eyes. The agent watched Ishida blink in slight shock. Grimmjow was told he looked like an ice demon when he tried. Thing was, Grimmjow never really tried. If this look was frightening, then Grimmjow was naturally frightening. Grimmjow didn't try.

Grimmjow always had a reason to be pissed, he didn't try for it.

Like now. So far, the people his team had encountered had been forthcoming in certain areas of information, not so in others. It was deliberate. Ichigo had given them instructions on what to say, and what to keep to themselves. It was a sick charade of information that was leading Grimmjow's team forward. He was beginning to feel like a puppet. The notes, the cameras, the weapons, all that crap. All strings to be pulled at the right time, trapdoors to be tripped in ordnance to what Ichigo wanted.

Well screw him.

"Why is Ichigo going to Japan?" Grimmjow asked, glaring at Ishida, allowing his displeasure to contaminate the room with his quiet, seething voice.

No one moved. Grimmjow could still see Starrk in the corner of his eye, looking down at the picture in his hands, letting Grimmjow do as he pleased.

"…I can't tell you that."

Ishida looked like a shaken, caged animal. His shoulder were hunched and the hacker seemed to force himself to look away from Grimmjow's ice cold glare. The man gave a minuscule flinch when Grimmjow spoke again.

"What is Ichigo's relationship with 'Tensa'?"

"…I can't…tell you that."

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed. This was getting annoying. "Why are you so fucking loyal to him?"

Why indeed? Grimmjow had the feeling this wasn't yakuza lapdog loyalty. It didn't fit this ill-tempered, intelligent man's personality. As far as Grimmjow could tell, the man was just another fuck-buddy.

Ishida looked up. His face slowly morphed. From caged animal, to empty blank. His shoulders relaxed and navy blue eyes slowly narrowed, the movement giving the man a hard edge that was reflected in his voice.

"Maybe. You should ask your friend."

It was Grimmjow's turn to blink. He turned quickly, surveying the faces of his teammates. For a moment, all were doing the same as he, glancing at each other, brows furrowed in slight confusion.

All except Ulquiorra.

The man was still where Grimmjow had placed him last, in the back of the room, hands in his pockets, emotionlessly eyeing the floor. Everyone was looking at him now. There was silence.

"…So he helped you get out of that place."

There was no question in Ulquiorra's monotone voice. Just a statement.

A pause. "It is understandable, no?"

"…Yes."

_'That place.'_

Grimmjow glanced between the two hackers, one looking intensely at the other, and the other doing nothing.

Grimmjow wanted to push a hole in a wall.

The agent looked at Ulquiorra. As he did, vacant, glassy-green orbs slid up to look at him. Waiting. For an order. An order to tell them what the hell was going on.

If it was an order, Ulquiorra would answer without question, without hesitation.

If Grimmjow ordered it, the hacker would comply.

Fucking Ichigo.

If Grimmjow ordered one of his team to tell them of their past, sooner or later, Grimmjow would have to as well. This was Ichigo's plan. It was what Grimmjow suspected. Grimmjow's eyes darted around the group. Frowning Nnoitra. wide-eyed Szayel. Carefully blank Starrk. Whether it was to create chaos within his team, or it held some future purpose, Ichigo wanted everything revealed. Grimmjow could feel it. The blue-haired man cursed himself. In his attempt to escape the conman, Grimmjow had merely tangled himself in the puppet-strings.

The head agent looked back to Ulquiorra. Pale. Blank-faced. Scar-hiding. Ulquiorra.

Grimmjow's left arm twitched, hand curling into a tight fist. He looked away.

_'Fuck this.'_

"We're leaving."

Grimmjow turned to scoop up the the zip-locked hair and toss it to a surprised Szayel. "DNA evidence, just in case. Now let's go."

Grimmjow walked up to a cold Ishida, bowing shortly. "Thank you for your hospitality, Ishida-san." The agent turned away before the hacker could reply.

Starrk was already at the entrance of the hallway, but moving slowly. Nnoitra and Szayel were barely stirring. Striding forward, Grimmjow was about to brush by the still immobile Ulquiorra…

…when the messenger printer started up again.

Everyone froze.

Slowly, Grimmjow turned as the printer finished it's job and a piece of paper fluttered to the messy floor.

A pale, thin hand picked it up. Ishida had been the closest.

Blue eyes scanned the paper, before reading out loud in japanese.

"'Good show, Grimm-chan," the hacker read. "But you need to see this act's finale before you can move forward. Ulquiorra. Center stage.'"

Ishida lowered the paper. No one moved.

Grimmjow's mouth opened to speak, to give the order that they were leaving-

-but he was cut off.

By a very loud ringtone.

**A/N: Yo, super long one, but I've been waiting. Next one will be awesome. So favorite maybe? (Also, review if you hate that catchy as fuck song.)**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Yo. Screw the pleasantries. I've been waiting for this part of the story for like 5 months. Read it.**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah.**

Warnings: Woo doggie. Prostitution, cussing, branding, angst, gay relations, sex, slave trade, crime in general.

"Ah. That's me." Ulquiorra reached into his pocket. Green eyes scanned the the caller ID and frowned. "I don't…know this number."

The iPhone continued ringing its jingle, buzzing as it did. Ulquiorra's thumb hovered over the answer icon, his brow furrowed. The rest of Grimmjow's team hadn't moved.

He finally pressed the answer icon and moved to press the phone to his ear but was stopped by a loud crackling sound. The white noise crackled throughout the room, grating on Grimmjow's ears.

"Speakerphone?…" the hacker murmured, pulling the phone away from his head. "I didn't…"

_"You know something, my little Koumori?"_

Ulquiorra dropped the phone as if it were a deadly scorpion. His hands flew to his face, grabbing over his mouth. Wide green eyes were pregnant with fear. The slim man staggered back a step as the voice continued to emit from the fallen phone, soft, tumbling english that seemed to whisper from every corner of the room.

_"You have such a beautiful face, my little Koumori. So pale…So perfect…but it's missing something, don't you think?"_

Ulquiorra began to shake.

There was a pause in the audio. _"Yes, I think I know what it is, little one..."_

A recording? Grimmjow stared at the phone. He knew that voice. It echoed in the recesses of his memory, eluding him like a coiling snake. It was a seductive hiss, edging on a dangerous purr. Playful and teasing.

It brought a sneer to his face. He didn't like it.

_"Such beautiful eyes...Like smooth jade, ne? But no matter what I do, you never cry. Never. My little Kou-mo-ri."_

The voice annunciated the syllables of the pet name almost endearingly. There was a soft thump as Ulquiorra's knees hit the floor. The shaking did not stop, and his hands pressed harder into his face, fingers cutting into his cheeks.

Grimmjow knew what was happening. He had seen this kind of backflash before. This voice was making Ulquiorra remember something. Something terrible.

There was a small noise, like the click of nails on metal. _"…Ah. That's a nice look in your eyes. Do you know what this is? I'm going to fix your face with this."_

A harsh buzzing sound filled the room. Ulquiorra's finger's suddenly clawed into his cheeks. Grimmjow could see it in his eyes. The man wasn't just remembering. He was reliving it.

_"Yes, I'm going to make you so much more beautiful, my Koumori. Now you will always be crying…always, always…."_

Ulquiorra's eye's twitched. Grimmjow wasn't sure if he was breathing.

_"My beautiful Koumori."_

The buzzing sound was suddenly amplified then cut off. The white noise that followed seemed almost silent compared to the voice and buzzing.

Ulquiorra was trembling. His whole body shook. The hacker was staring straight forward, unseeing. The hands over his mouth and nose gripped his face, veins popping slightly from the pale skin.

Suddenly another voice began speaking. The European dialect cut through the quiet. Grimmjow frowned. He didn't know Romanian well enough to understand what the speaker was saying.

Ulquiorra's eyes darted down, looking at his phone, the source of the sound. His hands slowly loosened from his face. They dropped into his lap, limp and unmoving. He stopped shaking. Whoever was speaking didn't seem to have much to say. A few moments of talking, then the audio stopped and the screen showed that the call had been ended.

Grimmjow reached out a hand to touch Ulquiorra's shoulder. But he was stopped by Ishida.

"Don't."

Grimmjow looked up. Ishida was moving forward, his brow furrowed with a frown. He glanced at Grimmjow when he was right in front of the unmoving Ulquiorra.

"You have to ask permission."

Grimmjow frowned as Ishida bent at the waist and knees, half crouching. One pale hand hovered over Ulquiorra's back and the other was presented to the hacker.

"Liliac?"

For a moment, Ulquiorra didn't move. Then, very slowly, his head turned to look at the offered hand, face obscured by a curtain of dark hair. A pale hand moved to grasp Ishida's. Ishida placed his hovering hand on Ulquiorra's back and gently pulled Ulquiorra from off his knees. The rival hacker's eyes were surprisingly soft even if his mouth was set in a hard line.

"Come. Let's get some coffee into you."

Ishida wrapped an arm around Ulquiorra's shoulders and coaxed the slightly smaller man towards his kitchen. The robed man glanced over his shoulder, chin giving a small jerk to beckon the rest of Grimmjow's team.

Slowly they began to trail after the hackers, into the surprisingly neat, large kitchen. Ishida led Ulquiorra to a barstool then busied himself with a well-used expresso machine. The rest of the team trickled into the kitchen.

For a few moments the only sound was the expresso machine warming up. Finally Ulquiorra spoke.

"That. Was Ichigo." The hacker raised his head, eyes not focusing on anything. "It was Ichigo who called me." Ulquiorra blinked and suddenly green eyes seemed much clearer. And much more pained. "The first part of the message was a clip of surveillance video audio. The second part was Ichigo."

Ichigo? Grimmjow absently wondered where the conman had picked up Romanian. Unless…

Ulquiorra continued. "The man who was first speaking…his name is Gin Ichimaru."

Ice seemed to form over Grimmjow's insides. He froze completely. That man. The right hand of…Grimmjow stared at Ulquiorra. No. There was no way that Ulquiorra had been one of that man's…

Grimmjow felt a cold hand grip his left arm. The agent forced himself to not turn to look at it, to shake off the feeling of his past creeping up on him. He knew why he had not recognized the voice before- that man had only ever addressed him in japanese, as far as he could remember.

The right hand of that man's organization. 'Four'. Had Gin gone through that many toys that he had reset his count? Bile built up in the back of Grimmjow's throat. 'My eyes'. Hisagi. He must have…belonged to the left hand. Christ, how had he not seen it before?

Grimmjow steeled himself. No. He would not let his recognition show. Under no circumstances. He glanced around. What he saw…puzzled him.

Nnoitra looked shocked. One purple eye was wide and unblinking. Szayel looked. Ill? The doctor's pale skin had a slightly green tinge to it. Ishida had a cold, stoney expression. He knew what was going to be said already, Grimmjow could tell. Grimmjow himself also…knew…and that small sense was enough to make him sick. But what shocked him was Starrk's expression.

The man looked as if he were about to kill someone.

Not some half-assed emotional kill. No. A well-planned, torturous, vendetta-powered kill. Grimmjow had never seen Starrk's handsome features twist into such a powerfully intimidating mask. Brows were drawn together, casting harsh shadows above glittering, rock-hard grey eyes. The older agent's square jaw was clenched, mouth a straight, uncompromising line. But Grimmjow only got a quick eyeful of his frightening face before Starrk turned away from the group, quietly bracing his hands against a kitchen countertop, his profile nothing but a dark shadow.

Grimmjow turned away from the sight feeling as if he had trespassed on something extremely personal.

But he was about to get the personal past bomb of the year. Right in his face.

Ulquiorra began speaking again and Grimmjow did his best to concentrate on the team hacker's words. But soon the blue-haired agent wouldn't have to try as Ulquiorra's story began to unfold.

"I…you all know I'm from Europe." A pale hand moved to brush dark hair out of his face. Grimmjow's eyes squinted minutely. Was there something wrong with Ulquiorra's skin? There were…cracks? dents?…on his face…. "My mother was…well, she was a prostitute. Among other things."

Ulquiorra didn't seem aware of his face, or anything for that matter. His eyes had the glossed over look of one who was remembering the past. "I grew up in particularly harsh poverty. My mother had become prostitute at a young age, after being abused in an orphanage for most of her childhood. She became pregnant by one of her customers at 16 and had me. That woman did her best to provide for me and as I became older, she took on more…specific customers. Of the…wealthy variety." Ulquiorra's jaw tightened.

"Even then, all of our money when to my education first, rent secondly, and food lastly. How that woman managed to keep her body in such…high demand…I will never know. She was beautiful, of course. Stunning, really. Red hair, big eyes, impressive endowments…but so ditzy at times…." A corner of the hacker's mouth twitched so quickly, Grimmjow wasn't even really sure he had seen it. The hacker's face was stoic again, distant. "It wasn't until I was 14 that she finally told me she had…that she was dying, really. Of a sexually transmitted disease."

A pause. "…She lobbied to wealthy clients with similar conditions and had been neglecting her own health for the sake of my education." Ishida set a large cup of hot expresso in front of his fellow hacker and Ulquiorra nodded shallowly in thanks. He continued. "By that time she was so sick that the doctors recommended that she be admitted to a hospital. She refused for several months, with the excuse that there was simply not enough money. And at that time there was not. But by the time that she collapsed from exhaustion, a couple of months later…there was."

Ulquiorra paused again, slowly turning his cup of espresso in a circle by the handle, not picking it up. "When I was 12, I hacked into my school's system and updated it to be on the same system as a national intelligence agency, then back, in one night."

Grimmjow blinked. Could a 12 year old do that? He thought back to when he himself had been 12. His thoughts darkened. Yes, 12 year old were certainly capable of a lot of things.

"For most of my time in school, I had been cheating." Ulquiorra continued. "From hacking my teachers' lesson plans to changing my grade in the school's system." Ulquiorra leaned over his mug, peering into the dark liquid. "My days and nights were dedicated to understanding the nature of computers. No, not even understanding. I understood. I was merely mastering the craft. Effortlessly, with no distractions. No friends, no school work, no clubs. The only things of importance to me were…computers…and that woman.

"When she had told me of her illness, I had already known for several months. That was when I began…selling my own particular talents. I knew she would not be able to work for much longer, and I made haste to make myself known to possible clients. People who needed to hide information. Those who needed to find information. Whether it be passwords, system reconfiguration, account access, identity concealment. Valuable information. I kept my prices particularly low until she actually told me something was wrong. Then the price went up." Ulquiorra paused before dipping a finger into his beverage and raising the digit to his mouth, licking the tip quickly. "And if the client wanted any other…additional services…it was nothing to me. Our roles had flipped. She was priority."

Ulquiorra's hand dropped to the mug handle, picking it up slowly, pausing in front of his face. "I had never thought myself particularly attractive but I had no problem in indulging select, well-behaved customers." He took a long sip of his expresso. "I suppose that was where I should have taken more caution…."

The hacker took another sip before he set the cup down again. "By the time my stubborn mother had collapsed I had enough money to take care of her medical expenses and admit her to the best hospital I could find. I officially dropped out of school when I was 15 and lived alone in our old apartment for the most part, working from there mostly, and only leaving to meet important clients very rarely. I kept a low profile and had 5 or 6 regulars and very little freelancing on the side. By the time I was 16, I had enough money to keep her taken care of for at least 5 years."

Ulquiorra lifted the mug to his mouth again, murmuring before he sipped, "That was when I took the wrong job."

"It wasn't a big job, but the price offered was on the high end. The customer was…sleazy to say the least. I would not have considered him normally. But he was dangerously powerful in that part of town. It would have been a mistake to refuse. So I did not.

Ulquiorra set his cup down again. "I finished the job quickly. I received due payment, and then continued with other transactions. Put it behind me. But when the man contacted me again, I could not refuse. Before I knew it, he was a regular. It soon became clear he did not solely employ me for my technical talents. I never knew where he had heard that I…treated…some customers differently. But he obviously knew. He demanded that I show up in person at each transaction, and other things of that nature."

"Obviously I refused his advances." Thin hands cupped around the still-steaming mug.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have.

"I am not sure why I did either. I never held my body in high esteem. It wasn't important to me. If it could bring out a pretty penny, I didn't mind for the most part. But for whatever reason, I refused him. Perhaps he reminded me of an other, older customer...not of my own.

A pause. "...In the winter of that year I was stopped crossing the street my a dark van. A burlap sack was pulled over my head and I was bound hand and foot before being knocked unconscious.

"…I can't say I remember much of the next several days. I recall being pushed, even bodily tossed from vehicle to vehicle. I was knocked out for the most part, whether by injection or blows to the head. There was a distinct time of consciousness in which I was in a cage for about a week, in a warehouse along with several others, both men and women, in similar situations. At that time, the conditions seemed bad to me…at that time. It was apparent that I had been impressed into a particularly brutal ring of human slave trafficking."

Ulquiorra paused to take another sip of his expresso. For a man talking about his imprisonment in a european slave ring, he was being surprisingly calm. and Grimmjow had a feeling he knew why.

Compared to Gin Ichimaru, slave rings were a walk in the park.

Ulquiorra continued. "I wasn't in my cage for very long or so it seemed to me. I was soon transported again. This, of course, also meant I was consistently drugged. For the most part I was handled roughly. There was only one time I was touched lightly enough not to bruise."

The hacker leaned over his mug again. "I was shoved into a room, along with several other pieces of 'merchandise'-all young, european men. Slimly built, like myself. I was only semiconscious, but I was aware of being stripped and hosed down, along with the other men. We were then chained to each other, still naked, and roughly led into an even brighter room.

"For the most part, the 'inspection of merchandise', as I later understood it to be, was a haze to me. All I remember of it was a gentle hand grasping me by the chin and lifting my face before letting go."

Grimmjow watched as thin hands gripped the coffee mug with momentary strength before relaxing, reluctantly. Ulquiorra pulled away from the mug, straightening up.

"I did not know in what country I was in at that time, but from there I was shipped to Japan. I did not find out who had purchased me for several months, when I could understand enough japanese to understand my initially small role in the politics of the place I came to be in."

Ulquiorra lifted a hand to his face, fingers brushing over the curious dents Grimmjow had noticed earlier. The team leader now saw that the marks were distinctly darker in some places. The hacker puled his fingers away from his face, rubbing the tips together and Grimmjow's keen eyes barely detected the smallest whisper of white that sprinkled down onto the smooth countertop.

_'Make up?'_

Ulquiorra pushed his mug from him. He had barely drunk any at all.

The hacker intwined his fingers on the countertop.

"…When I was 16…became a possession of Gin Ichimaru, right hand to Sousuke Aizen of Kyoka Suigetsu International."

**A/N: ...muhahahahahaHAHAHAHA HA HA HA HA ! ! !**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: READ THIS FIRST DAMN IT.**

**WARNING: If you are uncomfortable with situations involving rape and/or torture then I suggest you stop reading his fic now. From this point on, the situations only become more and more graphic in nature. Rape is not something to be taken lightly or joked about. The development of Ulquiorra's and other characters' backgrounds follow both physical and psychological themes of torture. Proceed with caution.**

**Other warnings: Gay relations, slavery, cussing, mentions of murder, abuse, rape, torture, ect.**

Disclaimer: I disclaim.

The silence in the room was absolute.

And Grimmjow knew why.

The power of Sousuke Aizen was feared and respected in the underworld almost on level with the Yakuza or Mafia. He controlled airlines, companies, had the ear of prominent politicians, and millions of dollars. But even under that, Aizen was powerful still. He had a hand in every illegal practice that existed. Gun running, human trafficking, drugs, countless scams, controversial scientific research, mercenaries, the man even had his own private army on his vast mansion grounds that doubled as the head of his operations.

The man's influence and power was frightening. But not as frightening and alluring as the man himself. Grimmjow unconsciously closed his eyes.

_"It's the easiest decision you will ever make, child. Trust me."_

Fuck that. An acid taste filled Grimmjow's mouth and he forced his eyes open, not looking at anything but Ulquiorra's face. The last thing he wanted to think about was that sick bastard.

The hacker seemed to be gone. Glazed green eyes stared at the mug in front of him without seeing. Grimmjow was almost startled when the dead-looking man started speaking again.

"The first time I met Gin Ichimaru he disconnected both of my arms and raped me."

Grimmjow's insides twisted. So it began. Ulquiorra's story...

"I was put into a windowless, brightly lit room, clothed in rags and fully conscious. They tossed me on a bed and chained me to an adjourning wall. I was left alone for some hours, in that cold room…then he came in."

Ulquiorra paused again. No muscle on his face moved. But there was a hate in his eyes that was so overpoweringly deadly that Grimmjow felt a small shiver of kinship. He didn't particularly want to think why he felt that, but he knew the look in Ulquiorra's eyes. The look of a man who was willing to kill another human being…if one could call Gin Ichimaru a human being.

"It was at that time I learned that I was selected as a replacement for that man's previous 'plaything'. Through the pain he addressed me in english, which I had made a point to learn several years before, for the sake of international communication. By what he said, I understood he had tired of companions of asian descent. I was a change 'on the menu', as it were. I later learned he had…finished with his previous plaything within the week….I was not so fortunate."

Ulquiorra's hand moved to his pocket, reaching in and pulling out the knife he had received from Abarai. He set the tool on the table horizontally. "After he raped me he used his favorite toy to carve the word 'MINE' in capital english letters on the inside of my upper thigh. He then made it a point to tell me exactly when he was going to push each arm back into its socket…I had never screamed before that night. Not as I did in the company of that man.

Ulquiorra paused again, one finger still resting on the butterfly knife. Then his hand reached up to his jacket, unzipping the first few inches to reveal his circularly scarred collarbone.

"The next morning I was equipped with a thick, unyielding, leather collar. A solid gold name tag with the number 'Four' hung from it. I later found out that each plaything of Gin's had a number, 1 to 99. He reset his count after 99…by the time I came into his possession, he had reset his count…twice."

Jade eyes suddenly flicked to Ishida and Grimmjow followed them. The other hacker was leaning against a countertop, one arm around his waist, the other hand at his throat, fingers brushing over fainter markings around his own neck.

"At any given time, Gin usually had only one plaything. As did Kaname Tousen, Aizen's left hand. But the man himself had over 100 specialized personal that were blackmailed or otherwise forced into Aizen's service, label-less and nameless. At the time I was in that place, Kaname was on his 69th companion- Shuhei Hiasgi- and Ishida was at the top of Aizen's intelligence-gathering force, a position that was usually never occupied by a slave. Am I correct, Ishida?"

The rival hacker looked up a small spark of astonishment flashing behind his glasses before he frowned.

"Yes, you are. As expected of the man who secretly hacked my mainframe from a storage room."

"Impatient as always, Quincy. How do you think I got past your firewalls in the first place? I'll get to that part in a moment."

Neither hacker cracked a smile at the comment that would have otherwise been taunting. The air was cold and dead as Ishida nodded, face now blank once again as he stroked at the silvery marks on his collarbone.

"As I was saying," Ulquiorra continued. "I was 'Four'. For the most part, that was all I was to those I encountered there.

"But Gin had another name for me…" The hacker hesitated for a fraction of a second. "He called me…Koumori…his little foreign bat. Because I was from Romania. And because I had soft dark hair, like the fur of a bat. Or so he told me.

"I learned later that even though Gin's playthings often had pet names, the staff of Aizen's complex usually didn't bother to learn them. When Gin was done with his pets he broke them completely. 'Into a thousand pieces, then again into another thousand', as the staff said." Ulquiorra blinked once slowly before continuing. "In the end he killed them. Not out of mercy. Out of boredom more than anything."

Ulquiorra paused. "Gin's chief duty in Aizen's corporation was an extractor of information, by way of torture. He also doubled as the person Aizen set on those he wanted to experience the purest form of pain before they died. Gin was talented in his own right. His relationships, if you could call them that, were more practice sessions to him than anything." Ulquiorra's jaw clenched. "He enjoyed beating, branding, carving, and otherwise torturing me on a regular basis. For the first two weeks, that was almost all that he did."

Ulquiorra rested his elbows on the counter, entwining his fingers over his mouth. His eyes were dark and deathly cold.

"Durning that time, I…acted as I did in all situations that I had found myself in up to that point…obediently."

Grimmjow blinked. Obediently? The blue haired agent knew what kinds of things Gin Ichimaru subjected his 'pets' to. And Ulquiorra, _this_ Ulquiorra who was on his team fundamentally for the reason that he could take care of himself in cases of dire pressure, had just_ taken it laying down_? That didn't sound like Ulquiorra at all.

At that moment, jade eyes darted to meet his. Grimmjow had a feeling the hacker knew exactly what he was thinking.

"It was self-preservation." Ulquiorra held Grimmjow's eyes for a second before looking away. "It was not in my best interest to fight what was happening to me. From the second I was kidnapped to the time at the end of those first two weeks, I knew it was best for me to take the blows as they came. Not to make myself an obvious target and be beaten beyond repair. And for the most part that was what I thought I had been doing."

Ulquiorra paused again, slowly rubbing his thumb against the side of his chin, deep in thought. "It turned out that I hadn't been doing that…needless to say, it resulted badly for me."

The hacker lowered his hands to the tabletop. "During those first two weeks, Gin had regarded me as I assumed he had with most of his previous companions. Played with them and left them broken and bloody. At the end of the fortnight, he told me he had a business trip and would be leaving that night. I honestly thought it was the end…No," Ulquiorra corrected himself. "I _hoped_ it was the end. I had three broken ribs. My jugulars were millimeters away from being exposed. I had had to pop my own shoulders into their sockets several times. And my left hand was so completely smashed, I was sure if I lived I would never be able to use it again. I had been given nothing but water, I was constantly coughing up blood, and I had been raped over. And over. And over again."

Ulquiorra's hand reached over and touched the jade butterfly knife with a pale finger. "I wanted to die." The finger twitched and the closed blade began spinning in place impossibly fast. The hacker watched it spin in a circular blur, eyes ice cold and empty.

Ulquiorra's hand suddenly slammed down over the knife, stopping it instantly and making the occupants of the kitchen jump at the sound of the loud clap of skin against surface.

"But that bastard didn't kill me."

Ulquiorra picked up his knife with thin fingers, dragging his identical jade eyes up and down over every centimeter.

"He told me it was my eyes. He loved how my eyes, which I thought had been the picture of obedience and pain up to that point, were filled with cold. Rebellious. Pure. _Hatred_."

Ulquiorra slammed the knife down with such force, Grimmjow was surprised that the weapon didn't crack and shatter against the countertop.

"And _the fucker loved it_."

Grimmjow watched as the hacker's hands clenched into fists on the counter, head bowed and dark hair hiding his expression. The disgust and loathing in Ulquiorra's voice had been enough though. The slim shoulders under the hacker's jacket were visibly tense and Grimmjow could see it took a deliberate effort to at least semi-relax, hands flattening out on the level surface, on either side of the knife.

"…He told be he would be back in a few days. Just like that. Whenever he left, he never gave an exact day. It scared the fuck out of me every morning. The possibility that when I woke up he might be there. Staring at me. His_ 'prize'_." The hacker spat out the last word with a mix of venom and disgust.

"The morning after he left, the staff put me to work. Later, when I understood enough japanese, I figured out that the philosophy in that place was, if you could walk, after your 'first duty' it was your 'secondary duty' to work. So after I was bandaged up, cleaned off, and a dark cloth bag was placed over my head, I began working. I was required, as a slave unaccompanied by my master, to wear the black cloth over my face, which I could see out of almost with complete clarity, but no one outside could see through. That and my collar branded me as 'Gin's' and compared to other slaves I was treated less…bodily. Where other slaves might be beaten for not doing work perfectly, I was left alone. Gin had long ago established that what was 'his' was never to be soiled by anyone else's hands. That was his personal privilege." Ulquiorra's mouth twitched into a sneer for a second before he continued.

"In the beginning, I was given mostly maid work. Cleaning and whatnot. Aizen's mansion grounds were vast, much like a housed city. As a maid, I had to learn certain parts of that place by memory and yet many others were a mystery to me at that time…but by the time I left that place, I had had every corridor, room, and exit memorized. Perfectly."

Ulquiorra paused again before continuing in the calm voice he had spoken the last sentence in. "In the times Gin was away, I was also given other duties. Serving duties. In particular, serving Aizen. At dinners, lunches, private meals, and so on. From the talk I eavesdropped on after such duties, I began to understand why I was given them.

"It turned out I had been a…gift."

Ulquiorra was obviously making an effort not to be…Grimmjow wasn't sure really. But the hacker was trying hard to keep himself under control.

"A gift from Aizen to Gin. It had been Aizen who had touched my face in the bright inspection room." Grimmjow saw another flash of pure hatred in the hacker's eyes before he continued.

"Of course, I wasn't merely a simple gift. It was more complicated than that. A longtime subordinate, Gin had, though trusted on the surface, had been under Aizen's suspicion in the more recent years. Gin knew this well. His 'keeping' of me had been a taunt to Aizen in the staff's, and many other's, eyes. Where he had finished with his other playthings with almost clockwork rapidity, he kept me, a present from the man he was allegedly challenging.

The hacker paused, and his voice became more emotionless as he continued, the fire slowly simmering out of him.

"It was a taunt, and in return, Aizen made it his business to 'play' with me himself. Usually when Gin was gone, but he made it obvious to the staff, which meant it would usually reach Gin even before he returned. As I said before, no one was allowed to touch me but Gin. No one was allowed to see my face without Gin being there. Besides the number on my collar, I was supposed to be no one.

"But Aizen was a power above even Gin. After I had served him several times Aizen ordered me to remove my cloth cover. I had to do that whenever I served him. There were other small things. Wiping his mouth for him. Tasting the food from his fork for poison. He addressed me as Mori-chan. A tease, derived from the name Gin had given me…"

Ulquiorra's head tilled to the side still looking at the knife in front of him, eyes growing dull. "These servings were the worse for me. I was a pawn in their fatal game of taunts. Whenever Gin returned he…made me 'his' again. Made sure I never had any doubts as to who I belonged to, as he called it with a smile. That man never seemed to stop smiling." Grimmjow noted the swift diminuendo of Ulquiorra's voice when he spoke that last sentence.

"He sometimes took be out for walks, a chain attached to my collar." Ulquiorra's voice was monotone as he spoke. "Flaunted me as it were. Not that it mattered that he was in public, how he treated me was almost indiscernible from how he…'played' in the bedroom." The hacker grew quieter. "He carved small reminders on my forearms…threw me down several flights of stairs…Once, as we were walking across a balcony with his entourage of subordinates, I spotted Aizen passing by several floors below. I didn't look away fast enough…

"Gin saw."

Ulquiorra was almost whispering. Grimmjow closed his eyes. He knew that hall. That balcony…was six stories up.

"…He smiled and pushed me over the edge."

Grimmjow heard the ghost of a gasp from behind him. Szayel.

"Gin held onto the chain, and if I hadn't grabbed it with my hands in time, the collar would have snapped my neck.

"…I dangled for a few moments, before Gin let the chain go. I fell four stories and landed on my side and arm. The fall itself didn't knock me out, but the pain. My shoulder was shattered. Gin left for a trip the next day and for the first time, the staff left me in the room to rest and recover. Regardless, the medic who bandaged me had specific orders to withhold painkillers."

Grimmjow kept his eyes closed, thinking about it. He had broken bones before. He knew how it felt. And thanks to the empathy he had developed in recent years, he could imagine how much pain the man had been in. It wasn't a good feeling.

Ulquiorra continued, his voice slightly louder, but not much. "From that point, the 'taunts' escalated. Gin left the grounds significantly less. I wondered if he was refusing direct orders from Aizen at times. He became rougher as time wore on, but his smile never disappeared. In fact, he smiled even more when he was with me."

The hacker paused, thinking back. "…If he had been a sick fuck before, he became a lethal, controlling, manipulating monster in those first 4 months…."

Ulquiorra's voice trailed off. Grimmjow tried to keep his jaw from dropping. 4 months? Ulquiorra had belonged to Gin for_ more than 4_ _months_?

But the hacker wasn't finished yet. "…That call you heard was a recording of surveillance video, from the camera that was in the room I was kept in, the room Gin visited me in.

"He was particularly cheerful that night. Like he had suddenly had a brilliant idea. He bound me to the bed and…just talked for the longest time….

"He never stopped looking at my face. I had realized later on that he had taken certain steps to avoid marking my face permanently. That night he told me that second to my eyes, my face was his next favorite part. That I looked like a doll he had once seen, emotionless. Pale. Pristine.

"But he didn't like it because it was perfect.

"He liked it because it was only he who could have the pleasure of fucking it up."

"Naturally, he never actually said it. But that didn't make it any less true. Up until then, my body had been though a lot." Ulquiorra hands twitched minutely, as if he wanted to wrap them around himself, but quelled the urge. "He had marked my body countless times. In japanese, in english. With knives, with freezing brands, with heat. With his nails. With his teeth.

"…but never once had I cried."

Ulquiorra's hand went to his face, still hidden by a curtain of hair. He didn't speak for a moment. Then his other hand reached into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small dark piece of plastic.

"…When I had been a child I had woken up once to a customer abusing my mother."

Ulquiorra's voice changed completely, that and the subject switch almost caught Grimmjow off guard. It now sounded completely robotic. As if he were reading off telephone numbers.

"When I opened the door to my bedroom the sounds stopped and I heard the sound of a body hitting the floor. Before I had made it to the living room, the customer had fled, door slamming after him. But he had left something of his behind.

"A knife. In my mother's stomach.

"In a few moments, the downstairs neighbor, another prostitute and my mother's friend, had burst into our apartment. She found me. Holding my mother's head in my lap, blood soaking into the knees of my pajamas. She later told me that the look I had on my face was one of…'true despair...'

"The neighbor called an ambulance and my mother nearly died from blood loss on the way there. But by some miracle she lived. Perhaps by force of spirit alone. We used all of our expenses on medical bills that month. And I never cried again..." Ulquiorra trailed off again.

"…But that would not do with Gin."

Ulquiorra's voice was different. Not cold, not robotic. It was quiet. But it was not emotionless. Placing the elusive emotion was difficult for Grimmjow.

Not looking down, Ulquiorra pressed a small clasp on the side of the plastic disk and the top popped open, revealing a small pad and mirror. The hacker lifted it to be level with his face, straightening up and tucking his dark hair behind his ears with his free hand.

"He took a tattoo gun to my face. Two lines, down the sides of my face from my eyes."

Ulquiorra picked up the cloth pad, revealing the pale makeup beneath. He turned his head so he could see the part of his face that had 'dents' on that side. Grimmjow could now see the darker line that showed through the nail scratches. He imagined it went from eye to jaw, about a centimeter thick. Ulquiorra patted the makeup pad on his cheek with practiced, efficient motions. Soon Grimmjow could not even tell the man had any makeup on to begin with, until he turned his face and began working on the other side.

"That man did that every night for a week, going over the same two lines with the tattoo gun. He didn't even touch the rest of my body. He pressed the gun into my face so hard I bled profusely. It was a miracle they didn't fester. He drove home the idea that I was his completely. And that the only way out was by death.

"It was nothing I didn't already know."

The hacker snapped the makeup container shut. His face was as it had been before, pale, unbroken. Grimmjow could not see any traces of a blemish or misshading anywhere. Ulquiorra had obviously been doing this for a while.

"But Aizen wasn't done with me. After the tattooing, I came to serve him and he smiled when he saw my face. I knew then, it was far from the end.

Ulquiorra slipped the makeup container back into his pocket. His hands entwined on the countertop again.

"One day he requested my service while Gin was still on the grounds. That in itself was frightening. On my way to Aizen's quarters I was certain I was going to run into him and he would take a dinner knife and stab me in the neck.

"But that didn't happen.

"Because Gin was his dinner guest."

Grimmjow almost cringed. Empathy had it's downsides.

"Aizen sometimes had dinner guests in his private dining room. I had served Kaname Tousen several times, and that was how Hisagi and I knew each other by sight. It also showed me that I wasn't the only one who had it like I did. Though Hisagi's imprisonment was more psychological than physical. Tousen kept his pets for much longer than Gin did. Hisagi had been there almost twice as long as I had by that point. About a year."

Grimmjow resisted clenching his hands into fists. He knew. He knew where this was going.

"When I walked in with a platter of food, black cloth still over my head, Gin's smile became the nearest to a straight line as I had ever seen….Aizen's grew."

Ulquiorra raised his entwined fingers so they would rest on his lip. His eyes closed as he narrated his story as if it had just happened yesterday. Dark circles stood out starkly against his white skin, giving him a haunted, harrowed look.

"I set Gin's plate in front of him thinking his look alone would kill me. That it would go through my black cloth and burn into my forehead with the pain of a thousand cherry red pokers and kill me."

Ulquiorra was almost whispering now, brow furrowed shallowly. In pain. But Grimmjow could hear every word spoken into the quiet kitchen with crystal clarity.

"After I set Aizen's plate down in front of him, I hesitated. At this point I was usually expected to remove the cover over my face…Aizen smiled at my hesitation. The bastard enjoyed it. He bade me to remove the cloth…I did not dare refuse.

"I looked at the floor. I usually did that while in the presence of either of them. So my traitorous eyes would not betray me. Still, I could practically feel the lethality rolling off of Gin. I hoped and prayed that that would be the end of it, and that I could hang near the wall of the room as I usually did.

"Of course, Aizen would have none of that. He had me stand behind his chair. Eat possibly poisoned food from his fork. Clean his fingers with my mouth. Wipe stray crumbs from the front of his pants. All things I had done before, but in front of Gin…I knew what would happen to me. I knew what he would do to me. I was his. And no one else's. Not even Aizen's."

Ulquiorra paused and his eyes tightened. Whether he was in pain, Grimmjow couldn't tell as he bowed his head, face hiding behind his eyes.

"Near the end of the dinner, Aizen got a spot of cream on his mouth. I moved to wipe it, but he stopped me. The bastard smiled and told me to lick it off. When I hesitated, he grabbed me by the hip and pulled me to him.

Grimmjow saw the hacker wet his lips, and his jaw tighten before he continued.

"I did it...

" ...and Gin crushed the wine glass in his hand."

_'Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad,'_ thought Grimmjow to himself.

"I moved to clean it but but he grabbed me by the collar and dragged me out of the room. It was the first time I had ever seen him not smiling."

Ulquiorra swallowed before raising his head so his eyes looked out over his hands. They locked on the knife in front of him.

"…He took me to the main hall and stopped just short of the center. At first I was confused.

"Then he told me that my screams would echo loudest there.

"...He threw me down on the floor and took out a knife. Any servants still in the hall fled, even though they were charged with lighting the individual lamps.

"In the half-darkness he began slashing at me with his knife.

"He held me down by my hands and soon I was bleeding all over the polished marble, my screams bouncing off the walls of the hall, echoing back to me tenfold. At one point he raised the knife and as it came down I was almost certain it was aimed at my heart." The corner of Ulquiorra's lips twitched unconsciously. "It wasn't."

"He changed direction and planted it in the side of my thigh. Then he grabbed me by the collar and asked me if I really wanted to die. He asked me what I thought he would do when I was dead. I didn't reply. I was losing a lot of blood. I recall him dragging me from the hall though. I also recall leaving a shiny, dark trail of blood behind me. He took me down several flights of stairs to where the slaves were kept at night.

"Then he. He…" Ulquiorra closed his eyes.

Grimmjow had a feeling the hacker wouldn't be able to continue. He nearly jumped when another voice spoke in Ulquiorra's place.

"He tied him to our whipping post and began beating him."

Grimmjow's eyes darted to Ishida. The other hacker was watching Ulquiorra, a hard line on his face and eyes deadly serious.

"I probably remember this part better considering I was there and not getting half beaten to death."

Ishida paused for a moment before continuing.

"We had been ushered in our holding cells for the night when that man came charging down, scattering guards and looking like he was going to murder someone."

Ishida crossed his arms over his chest, and his eyes became impossibly hard as he picked up where Ulquiorra left off. "None of us had ever, ever seen that man _not _smiling. We all could recognize Four on sight- he was the talk of that part of the grounds. The slave caught between the devil and his minion.

"Ichimaru tied him to the whipping post and began speaking. Whatever whispers were being thrown around the slave holds stopped, so we could all hear the words.

"'Slut' He called him. 'Whore' and 'Trash'. But most of all, 'Mine'."

In the corner of his eye, Grimmjow saw Ulquiorra shiver at that.

"Yes. 'You are mine', was the phrase he repeated over and over as he took a nine tails to Four's back. We had heard sounds from above before. Now we recognized them as Four's screams. Soon he stopped screaming, almost unconscious from loss of blood. But he let one rip when Ichimaru kicked him in the back. Several bets took place as to how many ribs were broken, based on the number of 'cracks'. As I recall, it turned out to be four.

"...I was at the front of my cage, and it amazed me that Four had not broken down in tears. Finally, Ichimaru untied him but kept him pinned to the post."

Ichida braced his hands against the countertop behind him, finally looking away from Ulquiorra. "He asked if Four wanted one of us to take his place…that shut the rest of us up."

Ishida drummed his fingers against the table top once, before continuing.

"Even after being beaten senseless and half bleeding to death Four said no. I swear every slave in that holding room was shocked beyond words. An opportunity to escape that _hell_? Passed up as if it were nothing? It was unfathomable."

He drummed his fingers against the counter once more before looking at Ulquiorra with a curious look on his face.

"But then Ichimaru asked him to prove it to him. Most of us were confused.

"Then Four kissed him."

Ishida paused, letting that sink in. Grimmjow wasn't sure if he was shocked or just…shocked.

"Not like one would kiss someone who was demanding it. But the kind of kiss one only shares with the person they love totally and completely. We all could have sworn we just saw Ichimaru take the nine tails to the man's back neigh on 12 times.

"But never had one seen a man ever kiss someone as tenderly and gently as this mere boy kissed that monster."

...

_What. The. Fuck?_

Ishida continued. "Ichimaru didn't seem surprised though. When Four finally collapsed against the post, out cold, that bastard smiled. He let Four fall to the floor, looking at him with that sick smile before barking at some guards to take him up to his rooms.

"The slaves started talking again when the guards picked him up to carry him out. But at the last second Ichimaru grabbed Four by the chin, so if he were awake he would be looking him in the eye. I barely heard what he said.

"'_That's a good look in your eyes, Koumori.' _

"…that's all he said before they all swept out of the place, like bats out of the mouth of hell."

Ishida seemed finished. Ulquiorra did not look up from his position of his face buried in his hands. Ishida shifted uncomfortably. "The encounter wasn't something quickly forgotten, even among all the monstrosities committed in that place. Especially when three weeks later Ichimaru was fou-"

Ishida broke off at the sound of a printer going off on the counter next to him. The hacker frowned that device, but held out his hand to catch the printed paper that was feeding out of it.

The man blinked before offering it to Ulquiorra.

"It's for you.

"It's from Ichigo."

**A/N: I think I'll take this opportunity to thank all you motherfuckers for your reviews. Motherfuckers, thank you.**

**Don't forget I do have another story, Return, which I promise I'll finish before God smites me off the earth for my cheekiness.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Sorry for lateness. School be school. Also I find I don't post a new chapter until the previous one has gotten 10 reviews. Fuck me, right?**

**Disclaimers: No es mio.**

**Warnings: Cussing, murder, crimes, rape, gangs, psychopaths, gay relations, blood, and so on. Shit gets pretty real here. You've been warned.**

Ulquiorra had removed the hand from his face and now looked at the printed paper with dead eyes. Finally, he leaned his thin body over the table and took it. Listless eyes widened fractionally before the man frowned. He didn't move for a moment before very carefully and deliberately turning the paper over so it was face down on the countertop.

The hacker suddenly stood up. Before Grimmjow knew it, Ulquiorra strode out of the kitchen, into the living room. He saw the hacker bend down and when he straightened up he had his phone in his hand, finger flying across the touch screen, eyes dark.

Grimmjow glanced at the paper on the counter. With quiet steps he approached it and picked the offending material up.

It was a grainy surveillance camera still, shot in bright light. A room. White washed walls with mysterious dark stains. Chains looped through rings embedded in the walls. The gleam of porcelain twinkled from behind a door, a bathroom with a sink.

And there was a bed. With sheets stained with the dark maroon of drying blood.

Grimmjow's head turned at the sound of Ulquiorra speaking in rapid-fire Romanian. The hacker was turned away from the rest of the team, shoulders tense and low words terse.

Another sound caught his attention and Grimmjow glanced at Szayel leaning over the kitchen sink. The doctor was shaking what looked like an unhealthy quantity of pills into his hand. Grimmjow had never seen the blue tablets before. The doctor threw them back, seeming to force them down without water. Grimmjow could have sworn Szayel's hands were trembling as he shakily replaced the cap on the mysterious pill bottle.

"Maybe I _don't_ want to fucking _share_ that with people."

At the sound of english, Grimmjow turned back to Ulquiorra. The hacker's voice had risen marginally, and was filled with a quiet anger.

There was a pause on the end of the line and Grimmjow glanced at the other occupants of the kitchen. Starrk and Nnoitra were standing stoically, arms crossed over their chests, watching Ulquiorra out of the corner of their eyes, or eye in the case of Nnoi. Ishida was looking at the printer next to him blandly. As if it were some cat that had taken a swipe at him without claws. Szayel was uncapping another mysterious pill bottle, fumbling with the lid.

_'Okay, that's enough.'_ thought Grimmjow angrily. He handed the paper to Starrk without looking and strode into the living room.

Grimmjow stopped in front of Ulquiorra, holding his hand out for the phone. Ulquiorra looked up at him for a moment, before glancing at the electronic and handing it over without looking back at his team leader.

Grimmjow put the phone to his ear waiting for Ichigo to speak on the other end.

He didn't have to wait long. A burst of bubbly french tumbled into his ear.

"Why Grimmy! I had no idea you were so hot tempered! Not that I'm complaining, it's _very_ sexy…"

The blue-haired agent's frown deepened as he turned his back to Ulquiorra. "Stop speaking that language."

"I'm sorry, what did you say Mssr. Jaegerjacques? I do not understand this _anglais_ you speak." Grimmjow could practically hear the yakuza conman beaming.

Grimmjow's hand tightened on the phone. "Stop fucking with me."

"I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, Mssr. Aren't we sorry, Shi?" Grimmjow heard a distant japanese curse. "Shiro and I are _so_ sorry, but we do not understand, kind sir."

Grimmjow closed his eyes in frustration. "The fuck do you want?"

His native language flowed off his tongue effortlessly, as if he left France yesterday rather than having not spoken french in years. French was a tricky language to learners, much like english. It was not a phonetic language like spanish, you couldn't just read off sounds. Ichigo's french was good, very nearly flawless, but he was definitely not of french origin.

Grimmjow's french was perfect. Musical even. Perhaps because he had been a choirboy in a catholic church chorus as a child. The nuns that taught the choir had even praised his voice, giving him solos and duets.

Now Grimmjow wished his voice had none of those angelic qualities. That way when he was pissed, as he was now, he could curse in french and not sound like a saint in wolf's clothing.

"Temper-temper, Grimmy. You might just crush Ulqui-chan's toy."

Hearing the japanese suffix mixed in with the mirthful french sounded strange to Grimmjow's ears. He resisted the urge to turn and look at the security camera just over his shoulder and didn't bother relaxing his grip on the iPhone.

"Don't they have rules against the use of cell phones on airplanes?" Grimmjow tasted his traitorous native tongue on his lips. He frowned further, pushing the sense of nostalgia out of his mind. He knew what happened after nostalgia. And he didn't want to remember anything right now. He was fucking busy.

"Aww now, I thought you'd have a little more faith in me than that by now." Grimmjow could hear the fake pout through Ichigo's slight japanese accent. "That really hurts my feeling, you know? Ah well, you really should get back to listening to Ulqui-chan's story." Suddenly Ichigo's french dropped to a playful stage whisper. "Don't worry, you aren't next. But I think you better keep an eye on your little nurse. He looks like he's having a hard time of it."

Grimmjow's eyes darted back to the kitchen. Szayel was propped up against the countertop, upper body mostly bent over the surface, braced by his forearms.

The agent half-turned away. "Listen, Kurosaki."

Grimmjow's voice was emotionless as it could get in his native language. He was tired of this shit. And from the sound of it, Ichigo was going to do this to every single one of them. Fine. He'd play the little fuck's game. But only after he set something straight.

"The second this is over, I am going to make sure you have paid your own share of this." Grimmjow's voice was cold. "Whatever you make us do, you had better be prepared to own up."

If Grimmjow was going to have to tell his story, he was going to make damn sure Ichigo's would be exposed in excruciating detail. He cast a sidelong glance in Ulquiorra's direction. The hacker was facing away from him, arms crossed and shoulders hunched. Whatever Ichigo had said to make the man tell his story down to the last detail must have been extremely personal. Grimmjow knew Ichigo knew his story too. Grimmjow would wager the orange-haired man knew all of their stories. Szayel. Nnoitra. Starrk. All of them. Grimmjow closed his eyes. If he had to pay with his own past to further the hunt…Ichigo was going to have to pay his own personal toll as well.

Grimmjow's eyes opened, crystal clear and ice-cold. "I don't know what the hell you want with me yet but trust me when I say I will find you, Ichigo."

And he would. No prey had ever escaped him. The faint sound of a gun cocking echoed in his memory. Flashes of people, of cities, the reflection of his eyes in a broken mirror. Ice cold and empty. Devoid. Even after being filled, over and over again, with the sight of blood. Enough blood to fill a lake. A river. An ocean. Those eyes had reflected none of it. Only the emptiness of an animal looking for his next kill. His next prey. To fill the infillible void.

"…Know this." Grimmjow's voice was deadly quiet, the flawless syllables dropping like stones into frigid water. "Nothing comes between me and my target." Grimmjow felt a shiver of familiarity along the scars on his back, but he ignored it. "Nothing, Ichigo. I will find you.

"I will find you, Ichigo."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then-

"…Of course…Grimmjow…"

Grimmjow listened to the nearly silent breathing for a moment. He wasn't sure what emotion that mere sound, the syllables of his name, were infused with. It was hard to put a label on the undiluted emotion, like trying to grasp cigarette smoke with your hand.

But to be honest, Grimmjow really didn't give a fuck.

The CIA agent pulled the phone away from his ear, ending the call with a decisive tap of his fingertip. His arm dropped and he stood there for a moment, eyes closed and head bowed, like the angels that had perched on the roof of that old catholic church. He had always thought they had looked foreboding, the unsmiling faces inclined not in prayer, but in contemplation. Unholy thoughts in the minds of those who were least expected to blaspheme.

Devils in disguise.

Grimmjow opened his eyes. He turned, handing Ulquiorra back his phone.

"Grimmjow?"

The blue haired agent didn't look at Starrk. He spared Ulquiorra a sideways glance, knowing he was acting strange. Acting like he had when he had first become an agent. No, even before that, long before he had met any of his team. He thought about how Ichigo made him feel before. Excited. Impatient. Slightly aroused if he had to be honest.

He didn't feel those things right now. He just wanted to hunt Ichigo down and drive his perfect face into a wall.

But that wasn't how it was. For the first time in his life, Grimmjow had the feeling it was him who was being hunted. Even though they were chasing him, Grimmjow knew.

This wasn't just his hunt. It was also Ichigo's.

He just didn't know why yet. The Tensa person, Ichigo, Ulquiorra's past, _his_ past, Aizen. It didn't make sense yet, but he knew they were all connected.

Grimmjow realized his glance at Ulquiorra had turned into a stare. He was staring at the man's open collar. At the jagged lines that encircled his neck.

_"You're leaving me, Sexta. How unfortunate."_

The head agent opened his mouth, growling lowly, "Kitchen. Now."

Grimmjow didn't follow the wide-eyed Ulquiorra as he returned to the adjuring room. He didn't care that half his team was probably wondering why he was acting so…differently. He stood very still, waiting for his…hunt-lust and anger and disgust and _thirst_ to fade. He couldn't go into that kitchen as Sexta. He had to be Grimmjow. Himself. A human. The kind that had compassion and understood comradeship.

Not a vicious killer.

_'Remember Nelliel.'_ Grimmjow closed his eyes. His sister. Humanity could not be that far off.

Grimmjow opened his eyes. He walked towards the kitchen, glancing at the security camera. He let one blue eyebrow lift quickly and then drop before he had passed into the kitchen and out of the camera's sight. Let Ichigo interpret that as he choose.

Ulquiorra was sitting at the counter again, nursing his expresso, face expressionless. Szayel was a prone form hunched over another counter. Nnoitra was slouched against a surface, his height still allowing him to look down at Grimmjow with his one uncovered eye. Ishida was looking at him as well, standing stiffly with his arms crossed loosely over his toned stomach. Starrk was turned away from him, still looking into the living room, his arms crossed more strongly than Ishida in his tan, leather-beaten jacket.

Grimmjow set Ulquiorra's phone in front of the hacker, next to the again overturned paper, saying nothing. He glanced at the printer. He had a feeling he wasn't going to have to wait very long.

He was right. The printer started up again, turning almost every head in the kitchen. A paper was fed out and Ishida reached forward to catch it before it dropped. The hacker handed it to Ulquiorra without looking.

Ulquiorra took it, setting his expresso down. The man's expression didn't change, dull eyes sidling over to look at Grimmjow. Waiting for a sign.

Grimmjow crossed his muscled arms, looking down at the floor. The kitchen atmosphere was heavy, apprehensive. Waiting.

"Do what you want." Grimmjow looked up, not at Ulquiorra, but past him, to the boringly painted kitchen walls. It was up to Ulquiorra to tell the rest of his story. That wasn't his fucking call.

Ulquiorra looked down at the paper again. He set it down, facing up. Then reached over and flipped the older picture so it was facing up as well, lined up next to it.

"It's not my blood on the bed in the first one." He said after a long pause.

The hacker turned the pictures so they were facing away from him, towards his team members.

"It's Gin's."

Grimmjow stepped forward, looking at the second picture. The grainy screenshot showed the same room and same bed, but this time there was someone on the bed. And the blood was much brighter.

The person on the bed was naked, with pale skin. His arms were tucked behind his head of silvery white hair, one leg languidly hanging off the edge of the bed, looking completely relaxed. The quality of the picture wasn't good enough to see the expression on the man's face but Grimmjow didn't need good quality to know the man was smiling.

As if he didn't have blood gushing from his stomach.

The gash seemed to go from his navel up to the side of his ribcage, as if he had been gutted to bleed out like a pig. From the look of it, the cut was messy, as if the killer had deliberately and painfully dug his knife into Gin's gut before yanking it up and out. Compared to the first photo, the size of the blood stain was smaller, so it must not have been long since he had been stabbed. He might have still been alive. There were red handprints on the sheets that were soaked over in blood in the later picture. There were handprints on Gin as well- on his chest and on his face and neck, drying in his hair. Blood was beginning to drip down the slope of his leg. It had already polled heavily around his crotch and red spots on either side of the man told that his killer had been on top of him, knees on either side, blocking the blood from going down his leg earlier.

Grimmjow could feel his other teammates come up behind him, looking over his shoulder. They said nothing. He said nothing. All of them were waiting for Ulquiorra to continue.

"Gin had a bad habit of leaving his knives stuck in me. He did it a lot during the first week, but I didn't notice until the second. Most times, those who bandaged me took them out and disposed of them. Gin never bothered to keep track, though he loved to use them." Ulquiorra paused. "He loved butterfly knives in particular. After I had been there for two months, he began ordering a different make. Ones with jade handles. To match my eyes, he said."

Ulquiorra's face didn't change, no muscle twitched. He spoke in an almost monotone voice, cold and detached. "…The first time Gin left for business and I was given maid duties, I was ordered to clean a series of storage rooms. In one of the rooms, in a secluded corner of that part of the grounds, was filled with old computer equipment."

The hacker paused to let that sink in. "When I had been kidnapped, I ceased to exist. No information about my past, occupations or otherwise, existed. No one in that place knew what I was…and so no special restrictions were put on me as had with slaves with designated computer access. I was not watched 24 hours a day, or monitored for unapproved access to electronics. I was essentially a rogue hacker. One that didn't make myself known until the very end…"

Ulquiorra reached forward across the table, tracing the space around his butterfly knife. "It wasn't hard to access all the information in Ishida's mainframe since he and his subordinates mostly gathered information, though it took me several months so as not to raise suspicions. It became harder when I Aizen began requesting me almost exclusively, and harder still when Gin took it upon himself to mark my face. After my face reconfiguration, I became extremely popular and it became dangerous to sneak to the computer storage room where I set up my system. But I did it, hiding my 'Four' tag under my face cloth at the nape of my neck. I wasn't the only one with my face concealed, so it wasn't that extraordinary to see a cloaked slave cleaning out rooms and the like."

The hacker's hand hovered over the knife before dropping off to the side, still not touching it. "At first, it was just a way to retain my sanity. I knew very well that it was impossible to escape that place and not have Gin hunt me down for the sole purpose of killing me for disobeying him. When ever I could, I immersed myself in the mansion's system, memorizing every code, accessing any information that I could. Most of the information meant nothing to me. But it was the computers that barely kept me there. Barely kept me human."

Ulquiorra paused again, hand moving to his face unconsciously before he stopped himself and set it back down next to the knife.

"But after Gin made me…more beautiful. As he called it. I changed."

Ulquiorra looked down at his hands. He didn't move for a moment before he tugged on sleeve up, then the other, to reveal his wrists. Scarred, white skin shone back at him.

The hacker brought one wrist close to his face, fingertips brushing over the marred skin lightly. "He told me the only way out was death."

Pale lips nearly touched the inside of the wrist, the two shades of pale skin ghostlike and unreal.

"And I believed him wholeheartedly."

Ulquiorra's hand moved suddenly and swiftly, scooping up the jade embellished knife and flicking it open in a fluid flurry of sleek blade and stone.

"But not my death."

The hacker brought the blade to his face, to his lips, even closer than his wrist had been a second ago.

"His."

Ulquiorra didn't move for a moment, and Grimmjow could see the man was thinking back, green eyes deadly cold as they remembered the moment when he had gone from barely surviving to heartlessly plotting the end of another human life. The blue haired agent felt it again. That shiver of recognition. This time he purposely quelled it.

"It wasn't hard procuring a forgotten knife and concealing it. I was his property, wholly and completely. The 'guards' assigned to me at the beginning and the doctors who attended to my wounds wouldn't even look me in the eyes, or handle me for any longer than they had to. It was not in their best interest to be affiliated with me. I was harmless to them, unlikely to lash out, with little to no chance of making it through the first month. It became worse when Gin kept me, I became something of a plague, a curse to even address directly. Secrets were easy to keep."

"…It took some planing. I had no doubts as to whether I could do it. Strange perhaps. Me, a helpless 16 year old, killing a seasoned torturer and murderer. But I knew it would be the sweetest feeling in the world. Like fresh spring of water in hell."

"And yet…"

The hacker rotated the knife in his hand, rotating it between his fingers. "I wondered if I should."

"Not because I had never killed anyone. Not for my soul, or because I thought killing was 'wrong'."

Ulquiorra's face changed for the first time since he sat down. The corners of his mouth slanted downwards with the inverse motion mirrored in his brow.

"There were times…when I doubted _him_."

The frown did not disappear as the hacker closed his eyes, shaking his head ever so slightly. "…but it didn't matter. He was going to die, and it was me who was going to do it.

Ulquiorra opened his eyes, level gaze back, and all signs of the frown gone as he enveloped the handle of his knife in his palm. "I just had to wait for the right time, the perfect opportunity. It was nearly 5 months before I had it. I found the hints in the system. Orders ignored, citations made, stealthily encoded exchanges. And finally. One night. The order.

"The encrypted order from Aizen to one of his specialized forces teams.

"'_Annihilate for insubordination.'"_

Ulquiorra's grip on the knife was so strong the bones of his knuckles looks as if there were going to slice through his skin.

"I was furious."

Grimmjow's eye flicked from the blade in the hacker's hand to his face and back again quickly. Ulquiorra's old anger burned in his voice, unrecognizable in his features. The voice of vendetta, of hate. And of something else…something…deeper.

"I was his. I. Me. No one else's. And for a _fucking hit team_ to get this order, a group of men he had never wronged, had never personally handed hell to? And they would get to kill him? No. There was no way I was going to let that happen. It was _my right_, as his. His death, his Koumori, his. Fucking. His."

Jade eyes looked as if they would shatter the butterfly blade. Eyes of disgust, of hatred, filled with fury and laced with poison.

Before he deflated.

The hacker suddenly leaned back, his eyes closing as he dropped the knife onto the counter with a clatter.

The hacker's jaw was tense. "God, I still hate that son of a bitch."

Tiredness ached in Ulquiorra's voice, exhaustion, and a the echo of a plea to stop. To not have to keep talking. To go back to how he was before he had stepped into Ishida's house. Just a hacker. Just an agent. Pastless, emotionless, and deathly efficient.

But it was too late. Ulquiorra was different now. Exposed. Stripped of the shadows of mysteriousness that usually clung to every member of Grimmjow's team. There was no going back. And with no place to go back to, the only thing left for him was to finish his story.

Just as Ichigo wanted.

"I had very little time to make my decision, and act on it. The message was yet to be opened and I had to work quickly to manipulate it and secure my chance."

Ulquiorra's hand went to his eyes, pressing lightly on the lids before increasing pressure and covering them completely.

"I changed only one thing. The target. Everything else stayed the same. I had my date. My time. My window of opportunity. Everything was set up. The place was obvious. Though he never slept there, my quarters was where he spent the most time when he was not on business. We would not be disturbed, even though we would be monitored. That room was always monitored, though the information only went to Aizen, as I found in my dissection of the system. So my only audience would be Aizen, the sick fuck…"

Ulquiorra slumped forward, arms bracing himself on the counter before he straightened his spine.

"Three weeks before the date Gin took it to unprecedented extremes. The week after my punishment in the slave hold I went half insane with fever. But he didn't stop. The days and nights blended together, but he was always there, and there was always pain. I remember that time as…a night terror bred with a demon from hell. There are things to this day that make me question my sanity…"

Ulquiorra opened his eyes, a look in them Grimmjow couldn't label. "He acted differently. It confused and frightened me. I couldn't tell if it was the fever or if he really said the things I heard.

"There was one thing I kept hearing over and over again though…" Ulquiorra pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. "'_Hurry. Hurry and save us, my little Koumori_.'"

Ulquiorra said nothing for a while, merely holding his head in his hands.

"When I came out of the fever, I was alone in my quarters. I didn't know how long he would be gone, even with the date looming large. But I had two weeks to calm and prepare myself…. "

"So I did."

Ulquiorra lifted his face from his hands, letting one hand drop to his knife, spinning it very slowly with one finger on the opposite side of the blade. His face was closed, blank, emotionless.

"And then it was they day of. Or rather the night." Spin.

"He came in. And 'woke me up' as he usually did. By grabbing me by the neck and throwing me were he wanted me that night." Spin.

"It was business as usual. But at the same time, it wasn't. He was…different. I-"

Ulquiorra stopped, mid-spin, as the printer started up again.

Ishida held out a hand until it was done printing and offered it to Ulquiorra without looking at it again.

The hacker took it, eyes hidden by a fringe of hair as he looked at it. He stayed like that for a while before one trembling hand went to his mouth. After a moment, the hand dropped back to the paper and began folding it carefully. In fourths, in twelfths, in sixteenths.

"If you'll excuse me, I am not going to show you this picture." Ulquiorra's head rose, face empty, save for a tightness him his jaw. "It is…more than personal."

Ulquiorra paused, swallowing shallowly. "All that is left to be said of this story is that I killed him. Too quickly, it felt. I had rigged the system to clear the way for an easy escape. And to send the hit team intended for Gin to Tousen's room instead. I left that place, not knowing whether that part had been executed correctly until yesterday when I saw Sixty-nine for the first time since then."

The man slipped the folded picture into one pocket, pausing before he spoke again.

"I returned to Romania even though my mother was already dead. I knew she wasn't going to last long when I had been kidnapped. My efforts had been too little, too late in the end."

Ulquiorra plucked his butterfly knife off the table, closing it quickly and pocketing it as he spoke emotionlessly and quickly.

"From there I…procured…formal training in weapons and self-defense. The training saved me from being at the mercy of my clients again more than once. I was contracted by the Romanian government once or twice and the CIA caught wind of me. Idiots tried hacking _me_. Offered a job when they couldn't manage it. I declined the first few times before they adjusted the openness of the contract to my liking. I came to America…it would be three years ago if I'm 20 now."

The hacker stopped there, hands folded in his lap, spine straight and eyes focused on something past the wall of Ishida's kitchen. Completely exposed. Save for that last photograph. The papers in Grimmjow's own pocket seemed to burn and he knew how the man must feel, nearly clinging to that one piece of him. Grimmjow remembered a time when there was no part of him that was his, save his thoughts. And truly, not even those at times. But better for Ulquiorra to be revealed to those who would not think of harming him, than a sadistic psychopath. Still the painfully empty eyes seemed like things Grimmjow should not have been privy to.

Ulquiorra blinked slowly, head turning to look Grimmjow directly in the eyes, as if he could tell exactly what Grimmjow was thinking, forcing him to look back almost spitefully. As if if he had to do this, Grimmjow and his team had to witness it. Every second, every word, every look.

His voice was empty as he spoke up one last time.

"Any questions, gentlemen?"

**A/N: Review like Colorful-Crap. I like real reviews with insight and criticism as well as compliments. **


End file.
